Marathon Weekly Update

I whacked it out of the park!

When I started this blog my idea was that I would write in it on Saturday afternoon after my run while I was icing or shoving food in my face. Now that I have gotten into long runs my Saturdays are pretty much shot.

Yesterday I got up at 5:15am so I could be at the run site in Golden Gate Park by 6:45am. Thankfully I have been getting up at 5am all week, so it wasn't a big deal. I ran with the Salazars again and I have to say I gelled with the group much more than the previous week. Our course was relatively easy to follow and flat. We started on Great Highway and ran south along the Ocean to the zoo and then turned around. Then we ran through the park for a mile and ran down Sunset to Lake Merced. We ran around Lake Merced and back on Sunset to the park.

I was shocked by how easy the run was. Seriously, I ran 17 miles and felt like I could have continued on and run a full marathon. I wasn't surprised to learn that was true when I returned to camp and talked with Coach Scott. He told me there is an old adage that, "If you can run 18 miles, you can run a marathon." Ok, so I didn't run the full 18, but I could have. In Scott's email to me he told me to run 17 miles. When we spoke yesterday morning he said to stop at the water stop at 16 miles. Well, the water stop was at 17 miles and we were relatively close to camp. So, I chose to listen to the coach and walk back. I'm sure I could have completed another mile but I didn't need to push myself.

I still have 12 weeks of training left and I need to make sure I'm healthy. I'm supposed to run with the Salazars again next weekend to make sure that I'm really healthy. And, I'm thinking about sticking with this pace group. I can handle the pace of the COBs but I can't keep up a conversation and I feel exhausted afterward. With the Salazars we told stories and played Mini Mysteries during the entire 4 hours and at the end of it I still had energy and was in good spirits. I need to make that decision in the next couple of weeks.

So, basically I rocked the face off of 17 miles and I'm looking foward to 20 in two weeks!

posted by Heidi @ 9:54 AM