Well, where was I? I don’t even know what happened last week. Monday was Labor Day so the rest of the week was just… off. All week felt like I was playing catch up. Which means my training suffered, and I’m honestly very nervous I’m going to pay for it on race day, but I’m pressing forward regardless. I’ll have my guide runner with me, so if anything happens and I am unable to run, she can drag my a$$ to the finish line. Kidding. I’m really just hoping to finish without dying first.

So what training happened this past week? I ran 5 miles on Wednesday. That’s it. No more running, no strength training. However, late in the week I did start doing more leg exercises randomly throughout the day. Step-ups, squats, stuff like that. Because I need to get these legs ready for hills, and if I don’t have time to run, the least I can do is work my legs. So, I’m trying not to look at the week as a total loss.

As if to back up that assumption that the week wasn’t a total loss, last week was also my “fatigue week”, yet I only had one day of extreme fatigue, with the rest of the days feeling pretty normal energy levels (read: not struggling to move). That was definitely encouraging.

I finished the week with a trip up north with some of my closest girlfriends. We take this trip every year, and it’s such a great time of relaxing, laughing, chatting, all the things. We did a really fun thing this year and ended our time with a dune buggy ride! There are dunes near where we vacation and they run tours during the warmer months. I have lived my life in Michigan and never been on one, so it was a pretty cool experience. I am a little scaredy-pants, especially going down the hills but I survived and also really enjoyed the adventure.

The ride over the hills of the sand dunes had me thinking a lot about this race I’m training for, because it’s also over sand dunes. The Sleeping Bear Dunes in northern Michigan. I won’t be running on sand, thankfully they’ve built trails for people to trek, but the hills will be quite similar, I’m sure. I have my work cut out for me. Hopefully this coming week I’ll have more to report. We’ll see. So far it’s not looking great, but I do hope at a minimum to be able to complete a long run. I’ll let you know how it goes 😉