The Heat of the Moment (Marathon Week!)

Week of February 20-26, 2017, i.e., BMO Mesa-Phoenix Marathon week!!!!!!!!!!!

Mileage:  48.2, via 6 days or not much/nothing, plus one PR marathon!

Monday - 4.1 mile shake out (7:41).  I usually don't run on Mondays, and I usually don't run 4 miles and do nothing else any day, so this was out of the natural order of things!  My glutes were still a tiny bit sore from Friday's bootcamp; often I get a little sore for a day after bootcamps, and I think the 20 x 400 workout I did on Saturday prolonged it this time.  Post-bootcamp soreness never seems to hurt my running (I was pretty sore from it when I ran the Hardest Workout Ever), and bootcamp is part of my routine, but nonetheless I didn't exactly like being a tad sore so close to my marathon!

Tuesday - 7.5 miles total, with my final tune-up workout of 2 miles warm-up, 2 miles at 6:30, 1 mile recovery, half mile at sub-6:00, 2 miles cool-down.  I ended up with 7.5 miles at 7:00 pace exactly, with the 2 mile tempo in 6:28/6:20 and the half mile in 2:46 (5:32 pace).  Although the tempo was a little faster than what my coach gave me, it was still not much considering that I was hoping to run 26.2 at 6:35 pace.  I kept telling myself not to push on the 2 miles, and that I would throw down when it came time for the half mile hard.  The half mile was fun and also the fastest I've run a half mile repeat as an adult, I think.  In high school I think I used to run 4 x 800 m at that pace or faster, back when I had speed for racing 1600 m and 3200 m.

Wednesday - 5.1 miles base pace (7:05) with Danielle and Amy R.  Amy had a 7 mile tempo at 6:55-7:10 pace and asked for my help, and I was happy to oblige for 5 miles of it (no taper cheating for me!).  Danielle went the whole way with her, plus warm-up and cool-down, so I was glad that worked out.  This run felt good - I was a little concerned about jumping right into that pace range, as my base runs often end around that pace, but start closer to 7:30-7:40, but I was fine.

Thursday - Off -- i.e., light elliptical for 15 minutes to keep up the workout streak (going strong since 1/1/14), along with my usual stretching and foam rolling.  This day also included a flight to Phoenix with some travel snafus (in the end, I ate dinner from McDonalds around midnight and got to bed at 1:00 a.m.).

Friday - 2.4 mile shake out with 4 strides (7:06). I know I'm tapered when my easy pace is 6:45, after a warm up mile. The journey is the reward, and I sure felt appreciative of this one.

Saturday - BMO Mesa-Phoenix Marathon in a massive PR of 2:49:20 (6:27.5 average pace)!  If you follow me on Strava, Facebook, or Instagram, this is old news by now, haha!  It was such a blessing to have everything align on race day.

My half splits were 1:25:45 and 1:23:35, and I was pretty proud of my pacing and that negative split, and I finished feeling strong with a 6:10 final mile.  I was 6th overall female and 1st in age group 35-39...and consistent with how I seem to pick marathons, my time would have won overall female in this race most past years, and would have placed in the top 3 every year except this one (it always just depends on who shows up)!  I'd have been ecstatic about a 2:49 even if it was dead last, however!  In case you're doing the math on my mileage, I also did a really easy paced 1 mile jog and plyometrics prior to the race.

It's still all sinking in, and I never in my wildest dreams thought I would see a 2:49 on a marathon finishing clock.  Multi-part race reports coming, but suffice to say I was thrilled with this result and it was truly by God's grace that I was able to cover 26.2 miles at that pace and feel good the whole way!

Fall in love with the process and the results will come!

Sunday - 2 mile recovery (9:06).   Bye, Phoenix - you've sure been good to me!

Happiness is a new marathon PR