Week 11! Right? I feel like I’m losing track. I am keeping notes, however, so you’re getting that at least. This week was not a lot of running. Looking at the calendar, I realized next week is my Tysabri infusion, so the fatigue was not unexpected. Not welcome either, but this week I seemed to be better emotionally about accepting it as a part of my life. I did a lot more walking than running, and when I did run I was encouraged that my legs still knew what to do and I still feel strong. Here’s your recap:

>Sunday: 0.38 mile walk with the dogs

>Monday: 0.76 mile walk with the dogs AND leg day at the gym. I happily use the seated leg press, calf extension, seated leg curl, hip abduction, hip adduction, and glute machines.

>Tuesday: Treadmill walk for 55 minutes (2.24 miles)

>Thursday*: Treadmill run/walk for 80 minutes (4.10 miles)

>Friday: 2.24 full loop around the ‘hood. Great weather this day, 70 and sunny. My only frustration is that the nozzle on my new water bottle fell off while I was running, but I survived without it.

>Saturday: 5 miles around the neighborhood. Since my new, larger water bottle was now busted (and on its way back to Amazon), I had to use my smaller one and stop at home to refill part way through, but again, I survived. I absolutely loved my pace on this run and I’m encouraged that the strength training I’ve been doing seems to be helping with my running.

*Thursday was rough. Usually I struggle to get started, but once I start I’m great at continuing until I reach my goal time or distance. On this day I was struggling to continue. I messaged my mom and sister to get “permission” to quit after 20 minutes or so. I’m so thankful they wouldn’t give it to me. My sister challenged me to take a break, refuel, and then get back on the treadmill. So that’s what I did! I ate a delicious sweet potato, loaded up the audiobook I was in the middle of listening to (one of my Sasha McCandless legal thrillers) and got back to walking. While walking at one point I looked at my timer to check how much time I had left to walk/run, and I had 33 minutes to go. Then I glanced at the audiobook and saw I had exactly 33 minutes left in the book! How awesome is that? It was exactly the motivation I needed to keep me on track to reach my goal of 80 minutes on my feet.

If this post feels a little choppy and disorganized, I apologize. Fatigue is both physical and mental. And it sucks. When I have weeks like this one, I get so scared that I’m not going to be ready for this race, or that I’ll lose some of the fitness and function I’ve built up so far. I didn’t become a runner until after I had M.S., so I don’t know what’s “normal” for running. Not only was I not a runner, I wasn’t any sort of athlete. But as I chat with others in the running community, I’m encouraged that most of my worries and hiccups are indeed very normal, and not exclusive to someone with M.S. But also, I do still have the added challenge of that diagnosis, and training for this race is teaching me more and more to respect my body and it’s capabilities. So there’s that. I just hope it returns the favor on race day.

That’s all for this (last?) week’s update. When I get some energy back maybe I’ll ramble on about all my foot issues. Doesn’t that sound fun? Maybe not, lol. For now, here are the stats: 12.48 miles traveled this week, 174.46 total miles marathon training. Add that to the 193 miles ran for the half marathon and you have 367.46 miles I’ve banked to get ready for the full in October. Yee. Ha.