Taper Time!!!! Bad Shoe Luck & Another Race

As expected, it was tough getting the miles in over the last week because I was traveling for work.

Monday was complete chaos because I was supposed to board my plane at 5:10 am.  Mitch woke me up at 4:30!  We live about 20 minutes from the airport and I still had to check my bag and get through security.  Thank goodness for our little airport because I made it just before they closed the door. Thank goodness for Mitch too because 1. I wouldn't have woken up on time at all and 2. he drove me to the airport so I didn't have to find parking.  The rest of my day was dedicated to work and then dinner/drinks with a broker.  I didn't run at all.

Tuesday was my best day.  We finished visiting potential clients fairly early so I had plenty of daylight to work with.  My hotel in Independence, Missouri connected to a 15 mile bike trail.  I am leery of running alone in strange cities, but this trail seemed inviting and I didn't want to run the treadmill if I didn't have to. 

 

I got a great ten mile run on this trail.  The elevation is less than 1000 feet above sea level (easy breathing) and the trail is relatively flat.  It runs along a canal through tree covered sections as well as open glades, under the occasional busy street, over little wooden bridges and by an old railroad trestle.  It is such a diverse trail and I loved it.  I didn't take enough pictures though.

 



After too much food and beer on Monday, I opted for big salad for dinner at On the Border.  It didn't taste as amazing at is looked, but it was okay.  I appreciated the evening to myself so I could run, eat and then work on emails until late into the night.

Wednesday and Thursday were short runs on the treadmill at my hotel in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.  I didn't have much time so I tried to make the best of it and add some speed play to my quick workouts.  I flew home on Thursday and didn't get in until 11pm.  I was so tired on Friday that I didn't run.

I came home to a new treadmill which I'm excited to get some miles on when the weather turns cold again and new trail runners that I ordered before I left.  I already run in the Altra KingMTs and they have about 500 miles on them.  They've been great for some of the worst terrain I've had to run on.  Sadly, these will be going back to Altra because they are considerably smaller than the first version.  Now that I've seen them I'm not sure I like the updates they made to the tongue either so I might wait until I can find a store that sells them before I get another pair.

This has been my luck lately with shoes.  I had the same thing happen with the Topos I bought for road running.  They were way too small and I had to send them back and replace them.  Now I don't think I can wear them for longer runs at all after my experience this weekend.

Saturday was my final long run before heading in to the taper.  If you're not familiar with this lingo, the taper is the last weeks leading up to a race when you cut your miles back and allow your body to recover from the high mileage peak training.  I was going to run 18 miles, but it didn't happen.

I did the road from Molt to Phipps Park, which was just over 13 miles and planned to change my shoes and finish on the trails.

This is what running roads in rural South-Central Montana looks like -

It will look much prettier when it turns green.  I can't wait!  Brown is not my favorite color.

I chose this road as an opportunity to see how my chosen shoes would do on a long downhill.  This was a mistake because I've done something to my Achilles.  I didn't notice it when I was running, though I could tell at the end that I'd pulled my calf muscle on that leg so I didn't do the trail section of my planned run.  I ended with 13.3 miles for the day.  By the time I got home I could hardly walk with the fire in my Achilles.  I have been icing it, soaked in Epsom salt and rubbed it down with Hammer Balm.  When I woke up it felt better but it didn't take long of standing on it before it started to hurt again.  I'll be taking today off and see how it feels tomorrow.  I didn't want to run the marathon in my Brooks wear-test shoes.  I LOVE them, but my toes jam against the front of the shoe on the downhill which is going to be problematic at my marathon.  But I would rather lose a toenail than suffer an Achilles injury.

Thankfully it is taper time so I am not worried about going easy for the next 3 weeks.  I'll run when I feel I can do so without hurting myself.  As far as training, the "hay is in the barn."  There isn't much I can do to improve my fitness between now and Revel Mt. Charleston.  I've done the training and my results will be based on the last 29 weeks of preparation.  It has either been enough for a BQ or it hasn't.

On another note, I've signed up for a small 5K locally.  I don't run races here in Billings very often but I couldn't turn this one down.

Next weekend we head out to Lewis and Clark Caverns to run an 8k event.  Next week's post will be late since we will be out of town for the whole weekend but hopefully I'll come back with some awesome pictures.

My Biggest Week!

Training week runs from Monday through Sunday.  In that aspect, I am at my biggest mileage week at over 60 miles after today's run (exact number unknown until I've completed today).  But the big deal for me is the week from Sunday through Saturday.  Since I did my long run on Sunday last week and Saturday this week, I hit 75.5 miles in 7 days!

I am officially tired, sore and constantly hungry.

Here's what that looked like:

Sunday:  18.6 miles - Swords Park    Mitch ran 15 miles too.  He dropped me off at the airport end of the trail and started from the other side.  We've done this a couple of times and its great because we can run our own pace and still see each other from time to time.  We did the last 7 miles together.  My overall average pace clocked in at 10:51/mile but most of my spits were in the low 10s.
Punxsutawney Phil made an appearance.  He's a long way from home.  (Actually a rock chuck is not quite the same thing as a groundhog but this is my story and I'll tell it how I want).

Monday:  10 miles - Shiloh Rd (Big Ditch Trail) at a 10:27/mile avg. pace.  I did this one after work and I dressed too warm for the weather.  This trail isn't much to look at so I didn't bother to take any pictures.

Tuesday:  3.4 miles - Zimmerman Trail    Yay!  The some of the trails are dry enough to run on!  I was mad at myself for not bringing a belt to carry my phone for pictures.  Mitch and I enjoyed a leisurely run/hike and then went out for dinner.

Wednesday:  9.6 miles - broken up in to two runs    This one was supposed to be a 3/3/3 (3 miles each done at a certain pace) but I was getting tired and it can be difficult to give up my entire evening to run when I have that many miles to do after work.  I got up and did the first half in the dark and then finished it with a treadmill run after work with a little speed thrown in.  I was trying to complete a challenge on Zwift anyway, but I wasn't excited about the treadmill when the weather was nice, but I admit that it is handy to be able to cook dinner while I'm running.

It was a beautiful morning for run -

Thursday:  10 miles - 2 out & back laps in the neighborhood.  I decided to take this one very easy.  It was cold and rain/snowing so I tucked my hands in to my jacket and refused to look at my watch the entire time.  It's so easy to feel like I need to push faster if I can see how slow I am running.  My goal was to run the whole time, including the hills at as easy of a pace as I could make myself do.  I kept telling myself "slow and steady, take it easy."  I managed an average of an easy 10:50/mile pace and only walked in a couple of spots for a few seconds.  The pace was what I was hoping for.

This is what 10 miles running in the rain does to the end of a braid:

Friday:  4.4 miles - Phipps Park   We've been waiting so long for this trail to be runnable again (Mitch's favorite).  In the winter we ran the steep climb for hill repeats often until the trail became to slick and then eventually too deep to run.  Now it's mostly clear with a short section that is till too muddy but otherwise perfect!   I love when the dirt is a little tacky because it's so much easier to run down than when it's completely dry.

Pause a moment here to look back at the first picture in this post.  There was quite a bit of snow still on the ground.  It's amazing how quickly it melted!

Saturday:  20 miles - Swords Park to the end of Zimmerman Trail and back.  Mitch and I did this together even though he was only going to do 18.  It was a long day.  I had already forgotten how much harder it is to do long runs on trails and overall it took us over 5 hours because we did a bit of walking and a few stops.  We are both sun burnt because I still haven't wrapped my head around the fact that I need to wear sunscreen.  I can't think of a better way to spend a beautiful, spring Saturday with my husband.  We took time for a little photo shoot along the way:

 

 

While this was a big week for me, I have to give Mitch a shout out!  He topped out the last 7 days with over 47 miles and that is a huge week for him too.  I'm very proud of him.

 

 

 



If I'm following my plan to a "T" then I would start tapering now.  Unfortunately, my training plan is a week ahead and assumes that my race is in 3 weeks. I have 4 weeks so I need another peak week.  I'll be traveling for work again and that makes getting the miles in pretty difficult, but I will do my best to get in a good run every day and work in some speed since my training plan hasn't incorporated that in a while. Next weekend I will run an 18 miler on Molt Hills to simulate race day and make sure I'm good with the gear choices I've made and then.......... it's taper time.