Uno mas

17 weeks down, 1 to go. Ready or not, here I go. Or something like that. My training is officially at the point where there's not a damn thing I can do to make myself faster, but there is oh so much that can happen to make me slower. Doesn't really seem fair, does it?

Here's how my second to last week before Boston went:

Monday - 6 in the morning, 4 in the afternoon. The last double before Boston (I'm also to the point where I often find myself thinking "well, there was the last before Boston."

Tuesday - 8.15 miles.

Wednesday - 12 including 3 easy, 1 tempo, 2 marathon pace, 1 tempo, 2 marathon pace and 3 easy. First time I've ever alternated between tempo and MP during a run and it felt kinda weird, especially the second time since I was going uphill and when I got done with the tempo mile, it took some finessing to get my legs locked into something that wasn't as fast, but not too slow either.

Thursday - 6 miles.

Friday - 8.38 miles w/ 8 strides. This is how a taper run should feel. My easy pace was much faster than normal. After running the first couple miles at just over 8:00/mile pace, every mile after that was sub-8 and I averaged 7:45 for the entire run, about 30-40 seconds faster than my "normal" easy pace.

Saturday - 6 miles. Again, easy was easier.

Sunday - 8.1 miles w/ 8 strides. A little slower than the previous two runs, but I was also trying to hold back more.

Total - 58.63 miles

So, the second to last week of taper, no long run, and my mileage was still higher than my peak mileage was when I trained for the Brookings Marathon (my second) back in 2006. Crazy.

No long run last week because I ran it this morning (Monday) instead so that my final week of training would line up with Boston. Besides, it was only 13 miles anyhow, so not really a "long" run.

Well, now there's pretty much nothing left to do but check and recheck the weather forecast, check and recheck my packing list, and otherwise needlessly obsess about what's going to happen next Monday. Should be fun!