Mississauga Marathon Training Week 14!

We are getting there, slowly but surely. It is time to start to solidify the time goals and to build the mental capacity to deal with the entire 42.2km that I'm set to run on May 5th. I'm currently flipping between feeling ready to go after an aggressive PB and feeling like I should ease off a bit and enjoy myself more during the race. Lots of time to decide though. Right now I need the good weather to hold so that I can try out my planned race day outfit that I bought last week:

Monday: Easter Monday, but I didn't have the day off. It was cold (Mother Nature's April Fool) and I wore my Uggs to walk from Union Station to my new job. The walk is about 1.1km each way. After we put the kids to bed, I went out into the blowing snow (SRSLY!) and ran a short run to make up for what I had missed on Saturday or Sunday while we had family in town. My shins started to really hurt a lot and I realized that I need to wear running shoes for the walk to the new job. Wind plus shin splints made this a slower run. 5.01k, 30:35

Tuesday: On Tuesday, I could have gotten up early to get my run in on the road, but I decided to return to the gym at lunch and bang out some tempo on the treadmill. I ran 1 mile warm up, 2 miles at tempo pace (5:02/km) and 1 mile cool down. My shins still hurt a bit, but I was glad to get the tempo done. If I'm going to up the pace, I have to do so this week, so we will see what happens tomorrow. 6.44k, 35:56

Wednesday: This day brought our first track workout! We got some detailed instructions from our clinic leader about how to calculate our 800m pace based on 10k race time. The instructions resulted in some funny emails back and forth about various math skills and had me pull out my phone to do some on track calculations the night of as well. I had used the last 10k of my 2013 Chilly Half marathon to determine my 800m pace and set it at 3:55. We did 4 repeats (with 400m rests). 3:33-3:42-3:46-3:45. I think I can run a bit faster as seen by my first lap. The wind was super crazy though. We will see what happens next week. 8.55k, 44:56

Thursday: Clinic night! We had a nice chat as usual and then hit the paved trails to run around the community lake twice. This is one of my favorite runs and Wayne and I started out together only to be joined by Lisa and Chris about 5k in. The run ended up being a bit fast as a result, but my shins didn't hurt and the conversation was awesome! 10k, 55:10

Friday: Rest. Whew!

Saturday: Busy day per usual, made even busier by the fact that Ken had to work and Alasdair had a birthday party from 11-1:15. I'm so blessed in the fact that my friend Jenn asked to have Fergus over for lunch and a playdate and I got some domestic work done (laundry. Piles and piles of laundry) and a short run. This was my first run in shorts (awesome) and the 2013 Chilly Half marathon jacket (not awesome - it doesn't breath). 6k, 33:31

Sunday: It was our first 32k run of the schedule! We met at 0730 at the running room and set off with a much larger group then usual as a lot of the 30k clinic people who ran Around the Bay are joining us now (Yippee!). Wayne, Yan and I started per usual and Chris joined us less then 1km in. The rain also joined us at that point, but it stopped by 3k and I waited and waited and waited for Chris to go ahead (we were running fast for our LSD pace (but not crazy fast), but S L O W for Chris. He never left us and it was nice to push a bit harder on this run. We stopped twice. Once around 14k so I could use the bathroom at Tim Hortons (I drank a coffee before the run which helped to wake me up, but makes me pee so much!) and once at almost 19k where Henry had yet again set up his van with snacks! I took the opportunity to show off my birthday present:

Then I ate three orange slices and we continued along for the last 15k. I also ate a pack of GU chomps and that was it for this run. I only carried water. I started to lag a bit with about 7k to go and was ready to tough it out alone as the men were doing fine, but Wayne stayed back with me to run a bit slower while Chris and Yan finished strong (and about 3 minutes before us). The amazing thing is that we didn't have one KM where our pace was over 6min/km. With a taper and adrenaline, my A+ goal may be in reach on May 5th. 32k, 3:04:04

Total KM: 68 (I'm fairly positive that this is a record breaking week for me), Total Time: 6:24:12, Average pace per KM: 0:05:39

Week 15 is our last big week of training before the taper. We will run the last 33km of the race route next Sunday and then it will be cruising to the start line. I really can't believe how fast this training season is going and that I'm not sick of it yet! This has been an amazing journey so far and I can't wait to finish this stage and toe the line of my victory lap!