Where has the time gone?

Two weeks from now, hopefully, I will be relaxing with family after having completed my first full marathon. I am almost afraid to write my goal time as I am almost afraid to even have a goal time. When I started training, I just wanted to finish in less than 5 hours. That would put me at about a 11.5 minute mile. As I continued to train I made my goal closer to a 4:45 finishing time. I go back and forth in my head with whether I can do that, but I will be thrilled with anything less than 5 hours, I think.

Updating my blog obviously has not been at the top of my list of things to do. We are smack in the middle of the Christmas season and the time has flown by. It seems at times that I have been training forever, but now with two weeks left I wonder if I have done enough. Maybe it's just me, or maybe it's all runners, but I think I will always feel like I could have pushed a little harder in my training, I could have eaten a little better the past few months, I could have rested a little more, and could have been a little more prepared. Nevertheless, I am excited, nervous, and as ready as I can be at this point.

I could check my gps ap on my phone and kind of find out how many miles I have done the past few months, but I could not do it completely accurately so I will just give an average. In October, November, and December, I ran anywhere between 21 and 35 miles a week. I can't tell you how I felt exactly on each of these runs but a couple stand out in my mind.
On November 19th I set out to run an 18 miler, but did not make it. I had already done a 15 and 17 and felt ok, but with each added mile, you add more nerves. On top of the nerves, I had been sick that week and before I was even at mile 6, I knew today was not the day to try to do 18. I decided to finish at 11 miles and try again the next week. I could have crawled through 18 that day, but it would have done more harm than good. The next Saturday, I went out again to try for 18. I think I was by myself because it was right after Thanksgiving. I felt great the whole way and had no problems until the last mile. My ankle was popping which is painful at times but I refused to let it stop me. I finished 18.03 miles in 3:04 and was AMAZED at that time. What a difference a week can make. That's the day that I decided my goal time was not fast enough. I finished with 10:10 minute miles and I can live with that. Not exaclty what you would call fast but, for me, a good time for a long distance.

The other run that stands out to me does so for not such a good reason. My 20 miler which was probably more like a 19 something miler, was so much more difficult. It wasn't the last two miles that did it to me, the problems started way before that. That 20 defeated me that week and I came home crying and disappointed. It was my last really long run during my training and it was hard to end it like that. The problems started around mile 14 with some sharp side cramps that did not want to go away. Up to that point I was feeling pretty good and pushed myself through my normal stops. I think that was my first mistake, out of routine. I realized after having to walk at mile 14 that I would not reach my time goal for that day, but still thought I would do o.k. At mile 16, I realized that my gps was not working well and was not tracking accurately. That was the last straw to kill my momentum. I have no idea what my actual distance was because of my gps, but I know my body did not feel like I hoped it would and I did not finish in a good time. It made me even more nervous for the actual marathon.  That's the day I decided my goal time might not be what I wanted it to be.

I have learned a lot so far in my training and expect to learn even more in the next two weeks. I'll share some of my wisdom (LOL) in the next post.