Week 15: 5 miles/8 miles/5 miles/9 miles

OK, first of all I'm blowing off my idea of running 18-20 miles today since I "only" ran 10 miles on Saturday at the Charlottesville 10 Miler. But it was a hard effort on Saturday! I'm tired (Nationals home opener in the new stadium last night and didn't get to bed until after 1 AM) but that probably wouldn't have been enough to keep me from running. Had blocked off the morning for a long run. Mainly, the weather stinks -- it's rainy and grey. So, all combined, I just couldn't muster the motivation. That, plus, reading over the training program there were a bunch of people who didn't do either of the longest two runs and still did fine in the marathon. So ... I convinced myself that a "regular" run would do just fine. Getting ready to head out here in a few minutes.

So here's my revised Week 15: 5 miles/8 miles/5 miles/9 miles in lieu of 18 miles/0 miles/5 miles/9 miles. Total mileage for the week is not that much affected: 27 miles versus 32 miles.

Anyway, THE TAPER BEGINS!!! Less than 3 weeks to Marathon Day!!! I have a massage scheduled for this Wednesday and a final one before the marathon on Wednesday, April 16th prior to our flight on Thursday. And ... I have a massage scheduled in Paris on the day after the marathon. Found a French guy who was trained in California and supposedly knows his stuff when it comes to sport massage. Unbelievable difficult to find such a person in France -- most of the massage is a light massage.

MONDAY: Pretty incredible run today after I kicked myself out the door to actually run! No nagging aches or pains. Ran 6.2 miles in 59 minutes at a 9:35 pace, 579 kcal and 153 Avg HR. It's my fastest average pace for any of my training runs. Temperature was right around 50 degrees and, although the weather reports called for "misting" in "pockets," Philomont must have been one big "pocket" today and it was doing more than "misting" for most of the day. Overall, probably the rainiest day of the training program. And no way to really plan around it because it kept up all day -- although it did start to come down harder right when I finished so that timing worked out well.

TUESDAY: Not a bad run. Everything loosened up by Mile 2.5 although the legs were a little tight until then. And ... it was way too warm for my liking. The temperature was in the mid 60s. Nice when you first step out the door but draining after that. I typically don't take fluids with me for an 8 mile run but by Mile 5 or so today I wished I had. Also, my heartrate was higher than normal for my pace -- a result of not enough hydration. Overall distance was 8.24 miles at 11:23 pace, 152 Avg HR (basically same heartrate as yesterday but nearly 2 minutes per mile slower pace!), 903 kcals. Massage scheduled for tomorrow. Yeah!