Sunday, April 17, 2011

Another one in the books

...but, not gonna lie, this one hurt a lot. I definitely had to earn this one.

18 miles (actually 18.15 if you count what it took me to get to Ana's house)

Average pace 8:54/mile
9 miles at an 8:22 pace

Very happy with the way this ended up, but man, did I struggle in the middle. I started the race pace stuff and was all, "hey! this is way easier than 2 weeks ago! i'm awesome!" which was quickly replaced by "DAMN this wind sucks and holy crap how am I going to do this until my Garmin says 14?!"

I had a slight meltdown at the 7th mile of the push, when a side stitch that had been driving me CRAZY finally got the best of me. I stopped, got a little hint of what might be considered tears, got ahold of myself, listened to Ana talk some sense into me, and gave myself a nice glass of HTFU. Then I got the last two done and did 4 more at a VERY easy pace to cooldown.

I do kind of wonder how the sam hill I'm going to hold that pace for longer. But I'm trying to remember that this is what taper is for; that I won't be doing Yasso 800s 2 days before the marathon, that the AP test will be over and maybe for the love of all things holy I'll be able then to get more than 5 hours of consecutive sleep. (Since I will have that lifted off my shoulders--I swear I'm more nervous for this test than the kids).

Came home, showered, took a very painful ice bath where I yelped for 15 minutes, threw on some compression, and then did the grocery shopping/bike around the block-ing/swingsetting all afternoon. Man, am I toast. I think I'll be hitting the hay as soon as my kids do.

One more big week here. I need to stay focused and not let the "how the HELL am I going to do this for 26.2 miles" get the best of me. I've thought that before about my race pace and it happened, so I need to really just believe that I can do it again and trust all these miles I've put in.

Home stretch. Less than a month.

I can do this.

7 comments:

Jumper 2.0 said...

Awesome job Sara! The taper will do wonders! You can do it physically and you can get by the mental challenge! You proved that today.

Christi said...

You did an awesome job!

Pharmie said...

Congrats on putting up some great numbers! I think you'll surprise yourself during your 26.2. You always do.

Anonymous said...

Yes you CAN! Great job fitting it all in and toughing things out!

Janet Edwards said...

Pushing through these rough days will have you all set to push come raceday! Own it!

The Salty One said...

Girl, you've got to get unintimidated by numbers. They're just numbers! You so have it in you to BQ. I know you do. I hope so much that you find that faith in yourself and can relax and let it happen on May 15! I'll be there and I can't wait to see you do it!!!!!

Cara said...

I love reading about your training! You have been nailing all of the major benchmarks -- you are SO going to do this!!! All you need now is to trust in your training and in yourself on race day, and you will do it! :)
(And yassos are my FAVORITE! I am completely convinced that they work.)