"It's everyone's taper nightmare come true"

Week of September 26-October 2, 2016

Mileage: 41.5, with a lot of schedule rearranging, 1 speed workout, 1 marathon goal pace practice workout, 2 short strength workouts, and 1 major stomach issue.  Although my runs were not done in the order they were scheduled, they were all done, and for that I was very thankful!  At my worst this week, I was sure I was going to miss my marathon (and also possibly die!), but I've bounced back quickly enough that I still plan to attempt a sub-3:00 on October 9!

Monday - Cross-training Monday, abbreviated (30 minutes elliptical, 30 minutes strength training).  I wish I could say the shortened workout was due to tapering instead of waking up in the middle of the night with stomach and GI issues!  Initially I thought I must have eaten something that didn't agree with me on Sunday night, but as it drug on I figured I caught a stomach bug (I had an iron stomach before I had cryptosporidium in 2015; now no more!).  When I got home from work on Monday evening I fell asleep on the couch for a couple of hours, which never happens.  Then I moved straight to bed around 8:00, stopping for only a protein shake for dinner (which also never happens; I have a mean evening appetite).  Albani tucked ME into bed on Monday night!

Tuesday - 8 miles base pace (7:52) - this was the stubborn stomach bug shuffle! I had a short workout scheduled (2 x 2 mile tempo), but it was questionable whether I should run at all so I decided to push the workout back and instead run easy miles. I should have taken the day completely off, but I'm very stubborn and hadn't yet admitted I was pretty sick! It was gorgeous running weather - 47 degrees and still - but I didn't enjoy it too much, and paranoia also started with my marathon being so close. After running I felt worse and ended up taking a little sick time from work and sleeping for 3 more hours (I would have liked to have taken the whole day off, but couldn't due to teaching Tuesday afternoon). For breakfast and lunch I only had protein shakes because I couldn't handle solids, but thinking I felt better in the evening I ate a real dinner with hopes of running the 2 x 2 workout on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday - A big fat 0 miles, although I did the elliptical (barely) for 10 minutes later in the day to keep the streak going...if I kept the streak through crypto, I can make it through anything (although early in the day I thought it would be ending for certain, since I blacked out just standing up for 3 minutes at Urgent Care).  After my real dinner on Tuesday night, I woke up about around 3:30 a.m. 8 hours after eating (just like on Monday early morning) feeling awful - sharp and stabbing stomach pain and about 15 trips to the bathroom within a few hours.  At some points I just laid on the bathroom floor, and let me tell you, no good thoughts about your future happen when laying on the bathroom floor.  There was no hope for any type of run or for making it to work.  I came close to going to the ER, but held out until 8:00 a.m. to call my doctor's office; they recommend that I go to Urgent Care when I used the phrase "severe stomach pain."

At Urgent Care, when the nurse was taking my orthostatic vital signs, I got super light-headed and had to bend over, plus almost threw up and started sweating.  My blood pressure dropped to 72/33 and pulse increased to 66 (from initial supine measurements of 90/66 and 37).  Because of this, they started me on an IV while doing further testing.  The IV helped, and I'd known I was really dehydrated based on my weight at intake.  I'd been drinking water, Nuun, and Osmo, but just couldn't keep up. 

I was at Urgent Care for about 4 hours, and had my blood pressure and heart rate taken 5 or 6 times by multiple different people.  They all asked, "Is this a normal heart rate for you?  Are you runner or something?", then after I said yes to both they made jokes about sending a "normal" person to the ER with that resting heart rate.  The one positive of the trip was that my resting heart rate consistently read 36-38, showing that I'm in the best shape of my life.  But a day at Urgent Care was not what I'd planned to be doing 11 days out from my marathon!   A friend gave me the title when he heard about the situation - "It's almost everyone's taper nightmare come true!"

My blood tests and UA came back normal (they wanted to do a stool sample to test, but there was nothing left to give and I hadn't eaten since Tuesday evening, so I got that to do at home).  The doctor concluded that it was a really bad stomach virus, pending different results from the stool test, and gave me a list of things to eat and not to eat while recovering.  Ironically, about everything I normally eat was on the list of what not to eat while recovering - whole grain everything, brown rice, quinoa, most fruits, most veggies, nuts, potatoes with skins, oatmeal, avocados, olives, raisins, beans, etc. On my list of good foods to eat while recovering were soup, fluids without pulp, eggs, fish, chicken, tofu, and some fruits (as well as white everything).  I had to laugh, because Albani always wants to buy white bread/white rice/white pasta, and I always tell her that we eat whole grains to be healthier!  She saw my list of good and bad recovery foods and said, "Poor mama has to eat unhealthy now."  Haha!

Not the ideal tapering position!

Thursday - 5.2 miles easy (8:37).  This was again me being stubborn and not wanting to admit I'm only human!  I figured I could still get in all of my runs for the week if I rearranged them, so this was my easy 5 that was scheduled for Sunday.  I knew my pace would be slower than usual, and I was dying to do something, but with how depleted I was 5 miles was enough (had I felt decent I would have run the 7 with strides that was actually scheduled for Thursday).  I didn't have any GI issues overnight Wednesday into Thursday, or I wouldn't have run this at all.  However, the illness definitely took a toll on me, as did lack of food.  Being 10 days out from my marathon and being able to only muster this run did not make me feel confident!  But, I was thankful to be able to get it in instead of nothing!  I was also able to eat more normally, although still smaller amounts than usual and less fiber.

Friday - 9.2 miles base pace, with 7 x 20 sec. strides in the final miles (7:33).  I have never been so excited to run 9 miles around 7:30 pace!  I figured this run would be slower than usual, and my first couple of miles were around 8:00 pace, and I was just fine with that.  I felt weak, but felt like I could get the mileage in, and I knew that I would feel better having done that (this run had been scheduled for Wednesday).  But as the miles went on, I felt better and better!  The second half of the run was at my normal relaxed pace (7:20ish), then my final mile with the strides was 6:40.  I was so happy and thankful to feel SO MUCH better!  This gave me hope for my marathon, as I still had 9 more days to get back to 100%.  Whew!  I also did a short 20 minute strength workout after this run; I didn't go to bootcamp because I hadn't expected to feel good enough to go, and wasn't even sure how far I would run, so timing and locations didn't add up.  This was my last strength training day before the marathon.

Saturday - 7.1 miles: 2 warm up, 2 x 2 miles at goal marathon pace with 0.5 recovery, 0.6 cool-down. 13:28 (6:44, 6:44) and 13:27 (6:47, 6:40) for the repeats, 7:08 average pace for all 7.1 miles together. This was kind of the workout I missed on Tuesday, but I slowed the pace on the repeats from the original workout so they wouldn't be too taxing since I was supposed to just skip this one instead of doing it the day before a track workout.  I thought that it would be helpful to practice goal marathon pace, and the OCD in me wanted to check the 2 x 2 mile off my schedule. I was aiming to keep the pace between 6:45-6:50, as in an ideal world I will run the first half of my marathon at 6:50 and second half at 6:45 (but if the whole thing is 6:50 that is just fine too!). Marathon pace as usual felt awkward, but I paced pretty evenly on a slightly rolling route, so that pace on flat ground will be a little different/easier too. The pace felt faster than easy but also sustainable, so that was good. I didn't feel 100% and my weight was still down a few pounds, but I felt better than Friday and like I was headed in the right direction!

Sunday - Crazy 400s! 12 miles total with 2.2 warm-up (7:35), 20 x 400 m on the track, 2 cool-down (7:57). The workout was 20 x 400 in 5 sets of 4 reps each. There was 200 m recovery between reps and 400 m recovery between sets. The goal splits started conservatively and got faster, although none of it was super fast since it was so many reps and meant to speed but not overly fatigue! My splits for each set were:

Set 1 (goal 1:30): 1:28, 1:30, 1:30, 1:31 - average 1:29.75

Set 2 (goal 1:28): 1:27, 1:28, 1:27, 1:28 - average 1:27.5

Set 3 (goal 1:27): 1:27, 1:26, 1:25, 1:26 - average 1:26

Set 4 (goal 1:26): 1:25, 1:26, 1:25, 1:26 - average 1:25.5

Set 5 (goal 1:25): 1:23, 1:25, 1:24, 1:23 - average 1:23.75
Average for all 20 was 1:26.5

My conversation about this workout with Jon went like this:

Jon: "I never ran 20 x 400.  I think the most I ever did was 8.  I wonder what pace you'd run for 8."

Me: "The purpose of this was to fine tune leg turnover without getting too fatigued, I think. I never did anything like this except for a week before Dallas when I did 16 x 400. I'm not exactly sure why anyone would do this; well, the only reason anyone would do this is if their coach put it on their schedule."  Definitely not one I would've thought to do on my own!

I felt amazing throughout this workout and the weather was perfect (48 degrees and no wind!). I finished feeling like I'd had a solid workout but not completely spent. It was actually far better than the 10 x 800 m workout I ran last week! Casey was in town for the Panther Run 5K yesterday, and ran 16 of the reps with me, which also helped a lot.  We took turns leading/pacing, and having someone else out there, in addition to not having to think about the pace on 8 of the reps, was extremely nice!  We ran on the Rogersville high school track, which is where she went to high school.

Ironically, this was the piece of scratch paper I grabbed to calculate my averages

Everything has ended up chill

So this week was a bit of a roller coaster, but has ended up just fine!  Maybe I needed this to be even more thankful for the opportunity I've been given with this training cycle and upcoming marathon.  In the big scheme of things, my finish time in this marathon is insignificant, and I realize how blessed I am to have this as one of the biggest things I've been working towards lately.  I'm very thankful that, as of today, all systems are go!  I was reminded of the song lyric:  "If your eyes are on the storm, you wonder if I love you still.  If your eyes are on the cross, you know I always have and I always will."  This is so true - with whatever happens in this race and every other day of my life! - so I choose not to focus on the storms.