Better late than never!

Christ!  I just realized I never posted about actually running the marathon!  Yup, I did it.  I reached the finish line.  Lifetime milestone crossed off the list!  Enough said.

And again...and again!!

Well!  Since my last post I've actually run the longest run ever, ever, EVER twice more!  (Woo-hoo!!)  (Oh yeah, and I turned 35.  Whoa.)  2 weeks ago Michele and I ran 16mi and today Erin and I ran 18mi, and I finally feel like I might just be able to pull this crazy marathon thing off.  (Phew!)

The 16mi run actually kind of super sucked.  It was a ridiculously hot & humid day, a lot of the run was in the blazing sun, and it was a struggle to stagger back to Michele's house at the end.  

Today, however, it was high 60s and light rain, which was actually really pleasant to run in (although wet feet = new blister, booooo).  But, the rain kept the bike path virtually desolate, which was a major plus.  Here's the proof that the run was accomplished, straight from my nike+ account.

A screenshot straight from nikeplus.com

Erin and I were pretty psyched with our run today - got our pace down to under 13:30min/mile.  Not too shabby!!  The weather was definitely a huge factor I think.  We did 2min/90sec run/walk intervals and I think that worked really, really well too.  Right now, that's definitely what I'm leaning towards for marathon day.

And I actually managed to do quite well running all my runs during my two weeks away (Lake Winnipaukee, home for a week, then Lake George).  In fact, despite my worry that I'd potentially slack off on vacation, it was the week home in between that I ended up not running...whoops!

But now there's only 2 loooooong runs left until the taper leading up to the marathon!  Next week 10mi, 2 weeks from now 20mi, then back to 10mi, then 23mi, and then 3 weeks of tapering.  Sweet!

The bonus for all this is that I actually got the hubs to start the couch to 5k program too!  Very proud of him.

14 miles done! Longest run ever, ever, ever, EVER!!

Feeling pretty awesome having finished the 14 mile long run!!  That's more than a half marathon!  Definitely the longest distance I've ever run at one time - EVER!  And while I wish I could do it a little faster, I am damn proud of the accomplishment.  I never thought I'd actually be able to run a marathon.  It's always been on my "bucket list" (I f@*%ing HATE that phrase!), it's always been a lifelong "dream" goal to run a marathon.  Back in my teens and 20s I knew I wanted to do it (and I've ALWAYS hated long distance running, so I really have no clue what that desire was all about- must be the masochist in me...) and expected I would "someday", but after hip surgery (and with that the realization that I'm not actually invincible - huh?  I'm not??) I kind of thought that running a marathon wasn't a realistic goal to have anymore.  Now that I've actually made it (more than!!) halfway there, it feels like this accomplishment is totally within arm's reach and I'm kind of peeing my pants about it!!

Now I just have to keep my ass in check and make sure I don't slack off during my vacation this week. Vacation = relaxation to me (well, as much relaxation as a mom of 2 crazy boys can get!) as well as LOTS of beer drinking (10am? sure! it's beer o'clock!) and LOTS delicious, naughty food and I find it VERY easy to forget about my workouts...Can't let that happen this week!!  Ok, maybe beer and junk food won't be avoided...let's be real...but I can't ditch out on my runs!!

Playlist Compiled

Finally spent some time on my Marathon playlist.  I ended up with 125 songs which I'm sure is WAY more than I need - iTunes tells me it's almost 8-1/2 hours of music!

Survived 12

I haven't been that great at blogging lately, huh?  I've been feeling a little burnt out from marathon training, and I think that's also triggering a lack of motivation to blog about it too, clearly.  I did get the 12mi run day out of the way though, so I'm pretty happy about that - although I pretty much still dread every other long run.  Running the 12 was much more enjoyable (not necessarily any easier, but definitely more enjoyable) because I met up with Erin and ran with her instead of running alone.  To me, that is key.  I had to get up at 4:30am on a Saturday morning to do it, but I'd probably do just about anything and drive just about anywhere to avoid running alone on the long runs.

We met up at the Minuteman Bikeway in Lexington, MA.  Sidenote: What a beautiful town Lexington is!  The cutest little downtown area!  Definitely now on my list of - would totally live there - locations.  Last week was actually supposed to be a recovery week and we were only supposed to run 6mi for the "long run", but since Erin was going out of town for work this week she decided to swap the weeks, so I did too.

I liked the Minuteman Bikeway as a running path a lot because it was very shady and flat.  Actually looking at the elevation profile, I am quite surprised to see that it's not quite as flat as it felt, but the change in gradient was very gradual, so at least you aren't looking giant hills in the face like at Winnekenni.

"Flat-ish" running path

The only negative aspect of the Minuteman Bikeway (besides it being quite a drive) is that it starts to get pretty busy.  That, and the fact that it's been a super hot summer so far, makes getting up at 4:30am totally worth it, so that as much of the run is completed as possible before the path gets too congested and before it gets unbearably hot out!!

It's quite nice to be in the recovery week this week and not to be dreading a LONG, long run again (at least not until NEXT week...)