12 Days to the Chicago Marathon

12 days to the Chicago Marathon!  And I’m nursing myself back to health, hopefully.  My back is still a bit tight at times, but running is manageable. 

Last night I had a very strong 6.2 mile workout along the East River.  While my time was a little on the slow side (9:50 pace), the effort was outstanding.  It was late, and rainy, so it was pretty deserted, and peaceful, in a gritty sort of way.  The humidity was rough, and it was only the occasional breezes and cool rain that allowed me to get through it.  I intend to push myself in my runs the next few days, and hopefully peak right around 10-10.

On a related note, while most people are heading into their taper now, I have come to realize that there is no taper for me.  My entire set of training seems to have been one long taper.  For one reason or another, I just not have put the necessary miles in to have something to back away from, which is essentially what a taper should be.  My high mileage weeks have been around 30 miles, due to a single long run in those weeks.  My other weeks are only in the 15 mile range.  Therefore, I have no need to taper, and rather need to push myself a little in the next 9 days, so I’ll be primed on race day.

On a final note, yesterday I was perusing some old posts.  I happened on Sept 2008, and I was struck by all the challenges I faced that month.  In particular, I had 2 really, really bad races (here and here), and it just helped to put things in perspective for me.  That Nov 2, I ran my fastest NYC Marathon ever, and followed that up in Feb 09 with my most amazing marathon ever.  Just goes to show that even when things are looking down, there are other factors at work, and if you pursue your goal with vigor, good things will come.

Previous Entries:  13  14  15  16  17  18  19  20  21  22  23  24  25  26  27  28