2 Weeks Until Boston!

A few updates are in order! 

1. I've failed at my at my sweets challenge. Everything was going smoothly and I made it 28 days without any desserts. Then my sister came to town and I got weak. She had never experienced the awesomeness that is Amy's ice cream, so I had to take her. I felt slightly guilty cheating, but it was worth it. A small cup of honey graham + dark chocolate was oh so good. I haven't gone crazy with the sweets since then though( minus 1 cadbury cream egg- 'tis the season!) and I plan to refrain from any other sweets until April 16th.  After cutting sweets out though, I did notice that I craved them less and less as the days went by. The first few days without were the toughest though. I thought about them a lot and it was easy to forget that I was even doing the challenge. I almost slipped a few times during the first few days. I noticed the cravings most after my longer runs, craving brownies and sugary soda after the 22 milers. Even though I did fail, I know that holding out these next few weeks will still make that rewarding dessert after the marathon taste that much better.

2. I have now entered the taper phase of marathon training! A lot of runners hate the taper phase, but I actually enjoy it. It's a nice mental break from the daunting 22 milers and having to plan your day around when you're going to fit in those medium and long runs. Gives me a chance to rest up a bit and roll out my ever-tight calves. 

A little re-cap on the memorable workouts(since I've failed to blog for the bulk of my Boston training.): 

1. The "Run From Hell"- This run took place on March 10th and the name of this run truely describes every moment of it. It was supposed to be 22-24 miles of ups and downs through the hill country of Austin. It started out as a drizzly dark run ( we met at 6:30am) and quickly turned into a torrential downpour. Thankfully, I had company on this run ( made a new friend, Gina, who runs with Rogue Downtown and is also training for Boston). We stuck together through the gusty winds & rivers of rain, lightning, chilly temps ( around 35-40 degrees) and many, many hills, with the largest topping out at 24% grade. Due to the lightning, we ended up cutting the run a bit short but squeezed in more miles than we had thought ( 21 miles total).  By the time I got to my car, I had to wring out my clothing and empty the water from my shoes. My hands were so cold, I could barely turn my car key to get the engine started. It took both hands to get the vehicle running! I was definitely worn out after this run, but proud that I stuck it out and got the job done.  * ( I was sore for about 4 days after this run due to the many hills!)

2. Yasso 800's- I used to do 800 repeats during practice for previous marathons but never Yasso's. ( If we were doing Yassos, I never knew what the workout was really meant for and probably never did it right.)  After reading about Yasso 800s,   http://www.runnersworld.com/article/0,7120,s6-238-244-255-624-0,00.html   I had the opportunity to attempt the workout in the correct fashion. On Tuesday, March 20th, we did the workout during practice and I did all 10 within a few second range of each one. I was mostly hitting 3:15, which is a bit faster than goal pace, but at least I was consistent. With a 400m jog in between each one, I ended up logging over 9 miles during the workout ( including warm up/cool down).

Now whether or not this actually can predict that I will run a 3:15 or 3:20 marathon, only race day will tell. I will have another opportunity tomorrow at practice to hit 3:20 Yasso's and try to stay consistent.

3. Long, lonely miles....On March 24th, I logged 22 miles by myself at practice since no one else showed up in my group. Normally, it's not too rough, but I was running on about 3.5 hrs of sleep. After a long ( and successful) night of slingin' tex-mex, I was unable to sleep and may have even gotten less than the above mentioned hrs before my alarm sounded at 5:45am. I forced myself to get up, as I knew I had a long jam-packed day ahead of me and there wouldn't be any other time to fit in this run. It actually turned into a very nice run and I finished in just under 3hrs. The day started out beautiful and eventually turned overcast and humid toward the end. I was tired, but felt strong and knew I could have continued on if I needed to. A good sign for race day!

4. Last Long Run!!!  Last night ( since I slept through my alarm on Saturday morning) I had to head out around 6:30pm after my shift at Lululemon to log my miles. I was scheduled to run 20 miles or 3hrs, but feeling like this was a bit too long for 2wks out, I opted for 16miles. Aside from stomach issues that kicked in around mile 10, and caused me to cut the run short by 0.75miles, I felt awesome! Another good sign for race day?? I can only hope!  

The work is now done for the most part.....Let the taper begin!!