Mississauga Marathon Training Week 19!

Week 19!!! Four weeks to go! 26 days according to the marathon site. I knew this week would start difficultly with recovery from Around the Bay, but I also knew that I needed to ensure I was set up to gain some confidence along the way. After my non-race pace performance at Around the Bay, I'm worried about hitting the ultimate goal of this training plan.

Monday, March 31st: Rest. Man. It was a tough day of just general walking. Stairs? Killer.

Tuesday, April 1st: While I worked a long day on Monday and didn't get home until about 2130 that night, I still wanted to get some kind of run in to loosen my legs. I woke up before five AM with a goal of about 8k. That plan went out the window when I took my first step down the stairs and my quads were still screaming. I decided not to make the early wake up go to waste and slogged my way through 6k. 38:22 I then spent the day travelling to and from Ottawa with a 1.5 hr meeting in between. I took a fab photo out of the plane window as we were landing though:

Wednesday April 2nd: Poor Alasdair wasn't feeling well, so I stayed at home with him. He was quite surprised that being sick meant no computer time, but he was quiet and I got lots of work done. I was able to get out before dinner once my husband was home for an 8k that felt a whole lot better on my legs than the day before. 8.01k, 46:07

Thursday April 3rd: Running Room night! We just chatted randomly about everyone's Around the Bay before heading out for a nice 10k with two loops around the lake. This is one of my fave routes and I started really quickly with Chris, Gerald and Claudia and had to back off about 2.5k in. I spoke to Chris about my plans to add Marathon Pace work to Sunday's long runs and he agreed, though he cautioned me that, "if you can't run 5 minute kilometers for 30k right now, you likely won't get you Boston Marathon time." I've decided to ignore this. 10k 56:57

Friday April 4th: Rest day! I'm guessing I'm already in a mini taper as all of my peak weeks are done! This means only 5 days a week of running! WooHoo!

Saturday April 5th: Ken had to work, and my dad was sick, so both kids joined me at the gym and went to the daycare ($7 for two hours for two kids! Amazing), where I ran 5k easy warm up and 7k a bit faster. It was a good run. 12k, 1:09:59

Sunday April 6th: Showed up for the Running Room group run and learned that the route was 32.7k. I had already decided to run the middle 10k at marathon race pace, but wanted to start slower. So I started with Erika and Claudia and we hit 10k in an hour. Then I ran 10k in 51:30 which is a 5:09/km or 8:18/mi pace which will get me my Boston Qualifying time. I was alone for the last 23km, battling headwinds and some long, slow rises, but I toughed it out and only allowed myself to "walk with purpose." This meant that I only walked if I need to shove my bottle back in my belt, or if a light was changing, I'd slow/walk in order to avoid being stopped. We ran near the marathon route, so it was exciting to see that the signs are now up telling of road closures! All in all, a beauty day, despite the headwinds and one of those runs which make me recall how much I just LOVE to run. 33.01k, 3:09:40

Total KM: 69.02 (42.89 miles), Total Time: 6:41:05, Average Pace per KM: 0:05:45 (0:09:21/mi)

Next week is more of the same, but with more marathon pace work and we'll run the last 33km of the marathon route! Then: TAPER!!! So close now!!! I hope you had a fab week!