April 26, 2014

Glass City Marathon: Last Week of Training & The Expo

Well, the day has finally come. If you are reading this post on Sunday morning, I have left my house by now. Coach Kemp and I walked to the Glass City Marathon which starts and finishes at the University of Toledo campus - about a 20 minute walk from our front door!

Are you surprised that I practiced this? Well, if you read my Race Day Nutrition post, then this would not come as a surprise. Yes, I too walked from our house to the Savage Arena on Saturday to get an estimate of how long it would take for us to walk, plus I had to pick up my race packet.

Now, it really took me about 25 minutes since I got stopped by a few of my neighbors, so if we are in crunch-mode, which we will not be, we can get to the start line in 20 minutes!

My last week of training went well, I already mentioned my 7-mile run on Saturday, in my post yesterday, but let's also see what workouts were done previously.

April 20 - 26

Sunday
Rest Day

Monday
Renegade Strength
5 Miles

Tuesday
Renegade Metabolic

Wednesday
10 Miles

Thursday
Renegade Metabolic

Friday
Rest Day

I was somewhat reluctant to take a rest day on Friday, but with some reflection, glad that I did. I am really bad at taking rest days, even though they are written into many training plans. I really have to force myself to do nothing. With it being warm outside, Prince is getting longer walks, so I guess I technically still got in a 20 minute brisk walk.

Saturday
To read about my Saturday run, read this post.

Weeks Mileage: 22 Miles
Renegade Classes: 3

Overall, I really tried to listen to my body this week. Last Saturday I got a pre-marathon massage, read about it here, and believe that released lots of tension in my back and legs. On Friday morning I woke with a stiff back, and made a last minute decision to not go to Renegade. I do love those workouts, but know that that one workout was not going to impact my progress, but it could negatively impact my back and/or legs if I were to become more sore/tight.

Most training guides instruct you to run more runs but at shorter distances, and as you can see above, I did not follow those guides :) I am more concerned about the long mileage verse my pace, so felt it best to run one last long run. Plus, I wanted to run one last time on the University/Toledo Parks trail. I do believe today's race will be one of the last times I run on that trail. It has been good to me, so I had to get in one more before race day!

Saturday was also the expo, which was held at Savage Arena.


There was much commotion as they held the Children's races on Saturday! It was very cute to see all the kiddos excited for their race. When I left, most of them had finished and they were enjoying Chick-fil-A, yum!

I really like the race shirt, especially the color, which is showing as more of a red-tone than a dark coral.


And of course, I had to indulge in some race-related goodies!


I plan to wear the "i run" headband on race day, and love the light pink one with a crown! The teal one states: "Run Like a Diva," which will be cute with my new race shirt which has teal and purple, my favorite color. I also snagged a car decal that I am hoping Coach Kemp 'oks'.

Michelyn

1 comment:

  1. Marathon coaching helpful in basic training and running. I agree with your concerns and last week was awesome.

    ReplyDelete