My final week is here! I cannot believe I've spent nearly 4 months of my life training for something. With this being my final week and the marathon being at the end of the week, I'm going to use this post to summarize all my feelings about the week. I'll be doing a recap of the race for my Sunday Runday post next week. Here's everything I got to do this week:
Monday - ZERO MILES. I mean zero. I didn't even walk my dog today, which was fine because she took herself for a walk! This afternoon I had a lot of posts to schedule for the blog and was outdoors testing some gear and refreshing my bear line tossing skills when my dog picked up a scent and ran off. An hour later, NoKey picked her up running down the road with a giant raspberry briar dragging from her tail and hind legs. We should have punished her, but she just seemed so happy to have taken an adventure that we just let it go.
Tuesday - 8 mile work hike. I had to hike the beautiful Ramseys Cascade Trail for work today (I know, what an awful task, right?!) This hike is considered more strenuous, but hiking approximately 1-1.5 miles per hour isn't really strenuous for the guides. I got my legs out and moving today, which is helping to keep me sane during my taper!
Wednesday - 3 easy miles. I took to the greenway near my house for three easy effort miles, again, just to keep my legs loose. I did some extra stretching and foam rolling for good measure.
Thursday - 1.5 hour easy nature walk. Today is a big day for me as my boss finally signed me off to be a full fledged hiking guide! It's really more of a formality being that I've already been out leading my own backpacking trips, but for day hikes we have to cram a lot of information into shorter hours. I was given her blessing as a guide with the only feedback being to project myself more. As a tiny lady, I can definitely stand to work on this!
Friday - 2 miles gentle hiking (work hike). At the last minute a co-worker booked a hike in one of my favorite areas of the park - Greenbrier. As a last minute add on I couldn't be more thrilled. Like I said, taper madness is KILLING ME!
Saturday - 3 miles hiking plus a long walk with my dog. I should have run today, but my clients were an HOUR late for my hike, then I had to drive out to Knoxville to pick up my race packet. I really HATE when races don't offer pickup on the same day as the event. It's really inconvenient when it's a 2-hour round trip drive. I've never enjoyed race expos because I don't have all the extra money to pay for the overpriced T-shirts and stickers. I didn't get home until 5 p.m. It was a LONG DAY, but at least staying busy helped keep my mind off the event.
Sunday - RACE DAY! I got up at 5 a.m. and was so nervous. My first marathon... I can't believe after all this it's finally here. I'm going to post a race recap in two weeks, but I will tell you that I finished, finished strong after a few crappy (and I mean crappy) miles in the middle of the race. I finished in 4:25:05, but I think if I hadn't had stomach issues I could have done it in 4:15;00. I'll be back next year Knoxville Marathon!
Well guys, that's it! My marathon training is complete. My work schedule really makes it too hard for me to run in the spring, summer and fall. My next scheduled race isn't until December - the Millinocket Marathon with NoKey! He will be running his first ever half marathon then and I'm hoping to add a few 10K's or half marathons to my schedule in the fall as well. Only time will tell how much training I'll be able to squeeze in. I am going to run some miles here and there and I've set a goal of running twice per week for the next few months just to maintain some level of fitness for my legs. With my job as a hiking guide I'll still be getting in plenty of miles, but something inside of me really wants to keep running.
I'm linking up with the Women's Running Community Share-it Saturday!
