One week to go until the big race.

Wow, it's been a while. With a teething one year old who's been waking up between 3-4 am last week I haven't had much time or energy to write. I'll try to keep it brief and go over the runs starting where I left off...

Friday (6.2mi, 43min, 6:58/mi avg) I ran around my "Work Loop" with the goal of an 80% effort. I hit it pretty well. I was working hard but left a little back. It felt hard but good.

Sunday (16.5mi, 2h 11m, 7:56/mi avg) I had 20 miles on the schedule as a final long run before the taper weeks begin. I was on call for work so I had to split the run up into 3 parts. First my daughter wanted to run the whole thing with me. "I can run 20 miles, Jay." Ummm, lets go around the block and see how you feel.... We ran around the block (just over 1/2 a mile) and she started out strong but stopped to walk at the half way point. She had a few more running efforts in her but by the end of the lap she was calling out "DRINK BREAK!" every 30 seconds to get a sip from my hand bottle. It was cute but the opposite of running. She decided that she wanted to go on a second lap for some reason so we went past the house and she ran probably 10% of the time and continued with the drink breaks. She wasn't interested in a third lap. I dropped her off at home and refilled my bottle that she had drank most of and ran a double out-and-back around the neighborhood to get another 5 miles in my legs. I came back home, refilled again and headed out to the YMCA.

The plan was for the family to give me a 45 - 50 min head start and then drive out there along the same route so that if I did get called for work, that they'd bring me my laptop and I could just hop in the car and start working. (sounds fun eh?) . Work never called and they passed me about 3.5 miles from the Y. I kept going and ended up with only 16.5 on the day. Good enough.

Monday (5.9mi 46min, 7:52 avg) I was a little tired from Sunday's adventure so I took it a little bit easy and ran out to Grass Lawn Park. I ran a mile around their funky 0.2mi track with shoes and then 2 more miles barefoot. There was a soccer game going on so I had to watch for errant kicks as I went past parts of the field but overall it went well. My feet feel pretty good.

Tuesday (5.1mi, 48min, 9:25/mi avg) I ran some easy miles with Nate again. Good to have the company out there on the run.

Wednesday (5.4mi, 37.5min, 6:57/mi avg) I went for a decent tempo run (my last for this training cycle) and had a little bit of stomach trouble holding me back on top of a lack of sleep. This was after one of the nights when the boy got up at 3am so that he and I could spend some quality time not sleeping.

Thursday (5.4mi, 51min, 9:34/mi avg) I ran the same route as Wednesday but with Nate in a pretty good rain storm. We were both soaked to the skin inside of 5 minutes. It wasn't that cold thankfully. It stopped raining by the time we finished which added to the humor of the run.

Friday (5.6mi, 45min, 8:05/mi avg) Easy pace out to Grass Lawn Park again where I only had time for one mile barefoot before heading back to work. Felt decent but not great. It always feels odd when I put my shoes back on after running barefoot. It takes me probably a quarter mile for my footfalls to feel normal again.

Sunday (10.5mi, 1h 22m, 7:50/mi avg) I ran out to the YMCA again following the same route as last weekend. I tried to keep close to an 8:00/mi pace. It's not easy with all of the smallish hills that I go up and down around here. I had to push a little harder on some of the uphills and hold back on some of the downhills. It worked out in the end to 7:50/mi which would be a great pace for me on race day. I think that would be a stretch but not impossible. My legs and body felt almost completely good. The exception to that statement was my stomach. I had to stop twice at the bathroom, by which I mean bushes by the side of the road. Annoying.

I passed the 1000 mile mark earlier this month and I'll pass the 1100 mile point next week. My weekly and monthly mileage are falling off a little this month due to the taper weeks before the race. If all goes well I'll run twice during the coming week. I get antsy when I don't run but it'll only help me rest up for next Saturday. So far so good.