I looked at the weather forecast for the week and rearranged my planned run and gym days to accommodate. I haven’t really been doing this officially, but it took a lot of stress out of the whole process so I think I’ll keep doing it from now on.

Sunday – 1.51 miles, 33 minute walk. It was evening, and I just felt like taking a walk around the neighborhood, and I figure that counts, so we’re throwing it in here.

Monday – 6.04 miles (84 minutes running) I got a late start Monday because of other things going on, I don’t remember. But even at 1 pm it was only 72 degrees which isn’t terrible. It was clear and sunny, beautiful weather. I forgot to wear my knee brace but I had no trouble there! My only issue on this run was pain on top of my left foot (extensor tendon) if I landed too far forward. A midfoot strike felt fine. This was only during the last mile so I think it was caused by normal swelling in my foot, making my shoe too tight (especially with the ankle brace).

Tuesday – Rest!

Wednesday – I ran for 70 minutes which turned out to be 5.51 miles. The weather was beautiful again and I had a great pace! I didn’t even feel like I was working hard for it, but I had negative splits, which meant I was getting faster as the miles ticked by. I started out with an average 12:41 minutes per mile and finished with an 11:58 average. This may not seem like fast times for most other runners, but for me this is downright speedy.

Thursday – I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned in the morning, and had my husband drop me off at the gym afterwards so I could get in a solid leg workout. I had debated taking the bus home afterwards. The closest bus stop is a half mile from our house, so I don’t utilize it much but it’s nice to have the option. Instead, I settled on walking the entire way home with a stop at the pharmacy on the way to pick up a prescription. Altogether, including the walk in and out of the pharmacy lol, it was a 2.63 mile walk.

Friday – Rest.

Saturday – I had planned to get up early to beat the heat and run 6 miles. However, once morning came my body was hollering at me to rest. So I made an executive decision to sleep instead. The rest of the day it was just too hot to run, so I decided I would do the run on Sunday morning instead.

Sunday – Remember I had planned to make up my skipped run in the morning? Well, morning came and I just couldn’t drag myself out of bed in time. I told my husband on the way to church that I had made an executive decision to sleep instead of running and he said, “didn’t you do that yesterday?” Yes, yes I supposed I did. You could say I made a consecutive executive decision, but I wouldn’t try to say that two times fast. (You can try, but it gets tricky).

Most of Sunday I was having trouble moving my legs, and I’m not sure what was up with that but it got better by evening. I knew I needed to stay on track with this plan as much as possible so I had my husband drop me off at the gym and I ran the 6 miles there. It went well, and I felt strong for most of it, but I did have to slow down a bit for the last couple of miles. Also, during the last half mile, I had the extensor tendon pain again on my left foot, so I stopped and took off the brace and loosened the laces on my shoe and that seemed to take care of it. It makes me wonder if I don’t need the ankle brace anymore, so I’ll be playing around with that this coming week.

It’s encouraging to see how my body is changing and healing throughout this process. I started wearing toe spacers periodically a few weeks ago and I believe that is helping my feet to get stronger for running, which makes a big difference. I wear one while I’m running as well and that seems to help with the turf toe on my right foot. Toes are little things but they are super important. You don’t really realize how important until something goes wrong.

I’m trying to be thankful for this difficult training process and reminding myself that the challenges I’m coming against each week are opportunities to overcome *before* the race, so that by race day I’ll be ready to just enjoy it. I hope anyway. I’ve only trained for a marathon once before and I don’t remember it being this difficult. But it was certainly rewarding, so we’ll keep focusing on that aspect.

Here’s your recap:
Weekly miles: 22.69
Half marathon training miles: 193 miles
Full marathon training miles: 222.69
Total miles toward the marathon: 415.69
Next week I have a 22 mile long run planned, and it looks like the weather is going to cooperate, so let’s hope my body does too!