Marathon Monday: Less than a Month to go!

Holy cow - how did I get here?  I just finished week 14 of my 18 week training plan!  With just a month to go the nerves, jitters, and self doubts are starting to take hold.  I am pretty sure I can complete the mileage but I want to have a GOOD race - I want to feel strong and confident.  That will be the hard  part.  More on that later, but for now lets summarize my mileage for week 14.

Tuesday: 5.2 miles ("tempo" run on the treadmill, UGH)
Wednesday: 9 miles
Thursday: 5 miles (with the BOB)
Saturday: 16.35 miles (trail race, recap tomorrow)
Total for the week: 35.55 miles

This next week will be the toughest of my training schedule - I am ready to face it head on!  I have my one and only 20 miler this week and then its all down hill until the marathon!  Right now I am looking forward to the taper, but I have heard that it starts to really get to most people - we will see.

For now, I am trying to decide how to run my race.  My original goal was not to have a time goal and to just run/walk it however I had to.  Now though, I am thinking that it might be helpful for me to run with a pace group.  But, I am not sure if I can run every step of the marathon (even at a slower pace).

What would you do if you were me?  Pick a pace group or go it alone?  

P.S.  If you haven't yet donated to my fundraising, please consider it.  I met my original goal, but I have another goal that I would love to reach, and I am just under $150 away from that.  It would mean the world to me to get to $3,620 raised for St Jude.  St Jude does wonderful things every day and every dollar helps them come closer to a cure!

Marathon Monday: Back on Track

If you will remember from my last marathon Monday post, I struggled with some hip/upper leg pain during my last long run.  I was sure it was bursitis based on everything I had read, but now I am not so sure.  I am thinking it may just be something with the IT band and the quads - I have been using the stick and stretching and it seems to be helping - hooray!  Week 11 of my 18 week training plan is complete.

Tuesday: 4 miles
Wednesday: 2 miles
Thursday: 2.25 miles (plus I swam for 25 minutes)
Saturday: 16 miles
Sunday: 5 mile race (recap tomorrow!)
      Total for the week: 29.25 miles

I deviated from the schedule some this week, I should have had two 4 mile runs and my long run was supposed to be on Thursday.  I decided to switch my long run back to Saturday after the hip issue last weekend - I wanted to give myself a bit more time to heal, plus I can only get two hours of childcare during the week so I wasn't sure what to do with Daniel.  And then a stomach cramp mid run Wednesday kept me from completing 4 miles.  But, overall I got the miles in.  So, its a success!

Besides the hip pain last week, the 16 mile run was glorious.  This weeks long run was miserable to say the least.  I had to stop at the bathroom only 4.5 miles in, by 6-7 miles in I was dragging, I had nothing left in the tank to keep my body moving.  So, I tried to take fuel and that caused more stomach issues.  By mile 9.5 I was struggling with being light headed.  I pushed on though, trying to balance getting enough fuel to keep conscious  while minimizing the stomach issues. Then, the actual stomach cramps started at around mile 13.  By mile 14 I was walking, I ended up walking most of those last 2 miles.  But I finished and on a day where my body was so adamant it didn't want to do the miles, that is a big fat WIN.  Just for fun, lets check out the splits shall we?

Mile 1:       10:01
Mile 2:       9:49
Mile 3:       9:44
Mile 4:       9:51
Mile 5:       9:52
Mile 6:       9:53
Mile 7:       9:42
Mile 8:       10:11
Mile 9:       9:52
Mile 10:     9:42
Mile 11:     9:48
Mile 12:     10:56 (this is where the struggling really started)
Mile 13:     11:42
Mile 14:     11:32
Mile 15:     14:47
Mile 16:     13:14


Anyone else have as many stomach problems as I do?  It seems like even WATER causes problems anymore.  I have NO CLUE how I am going to run a marathon in 6-7 weeks if I can't get this figured out! :( Any suggestions?  I have tried sports drinks, gummys, jelly beans, gu, chomps, and powerbar energy blasts. I used chocolate #9 with some success, but I can't buy that locally and honestly it still caused problems.  HELP!