Richmond Marathon Training Take 2 - Week 20

I am officially the most boring blogger on the planet.

3 runs for 27.3 miles
2 miles in the pool

Running miles logged so far: 469.8

Training highlights:

• Hm. At this point, all of the weeks blur together and I honestly can't think of a highlight. It was a drop back week and therefore it was a nice reprieve maybe?
• Oh yeah... the twelve with Team Navy was actually a pretty fun time. There were no Pace Police this time, so we just ran and the result was an 8:10 average pace. Whoops!

Training lowlights:

• Learning the hard lesson that the first run after a 20 miler is in fact much worse than the 20 miler itself. On Monday I usually do speed work. That wasn't going to happen, so I did an easy 5 that felt more like 25. Given that my previous long runs didn't really affect me all that much, I didn't think that adding one more mile would make of a difference... but it did.
• Saying au revoir to my most beloved Pinks. I wrote a while back about how difficult it has been for me to part with my old running shoes. I was finally able to talk myself into doing it this past Saturday after I got the weekly MTT email announcing that SportsBackers organized a shoe donation drive for the Sports Outreach Institute. I thew my old Ravennas on the pile without batting and eye, but even though I knew they were going to a great cause, I still had a lot of trouble letting go of my Pinks. Even after I had put them on top of the pile, I had to walk far away from it on my way back to my car because I was very tempted to go snatch them off and take them home with me. Yes, I know this is all crazy.

So many good memories with these shoes.
Greg was good enough to take one last photo of us together.

I think what made it so hard to say good bye was that
they still had their Gelato stain from our trip to Italy.

Gold Star of the Week:

• This week's Gold Star goes to Greg, who throughout the week kept saying "I'm going to try to keep up with guys on Saturday during the 12." You see, Greg has this problem in that he really underestimates what he is capable of on the long run. He can totally hang with the front pack of Navy, but he has convinced himself that he can't. Anyhow, on Saturday, Greg not only hung with us, he was in front of me, Kit, Mark, and Teresa for the entire run. He and Giles were speed demons on Saturday, always at least 20 yards ahead of the rest of us (if not more), and finished before us too. Just goes to show that you shouldn't ever underestimate yourself - every one of us is capable of more than we ever dreamed.

So, the week ahead. Um, well... I just wrote a giant paragraph about giving away a pair of shoes, which is a pretty good indicator of just how tenuous my hold on sanity is at this point. This week is not only my highest mileage week of marathon training, but it is also the most stressful week of the year at my job.

Since my update is late, I once again have finished 2 of my 3 runs for the week. This morning was my last double digit mid-week run, which is just insane. It seems like it was just yesterday that I was looking at the months of September and October and was wondering how in the world I would ever be able to fit in 10 miles before getting to work. Now I blinked and it's over!

Twenty miles on the schedule for Sunday and then coasting it until Marathon day.

(!!!)