3 Weeks and Counting...

My marathon training schedule has been extremely flexible this year. Last year I drew up a plan, with my mileage for every day for 12 weeks before the marathon mapped out and taped to my closet door where I could see what lay ahead and track my progress. My schedule was rigid: I allowed myself to run further than I had planned if I felt good on a given day, but woe be unto me if I ran less. Maybe that was part of my downfall, why one day I kept running when I knew I should stop and put myself out of commission a month before the July 24th marathon.

This year I've learned. I did make a couple tentative schedules back when I started thinking about training again in January, but I haven't looked at them once since I began training "officially" in February. I started out well ahead of schedule, which allowed me to take time off if I needed it, and I have not had one long run that has been anything but a vague possibility until the day I run it. When I wake up on a Saturday morning (and once it was a Thursday), a long run is either within the realm of possibility or it is not. And although every time it has been within the realm of possibility I have managed to complete the run, knowing that I don't have to complete it removes an enormous amount of pressure. I can actually sleep the night before, for one thing, and I can thoroughly enjoy most of my run knowing that I can (but probably won't) cut it short if necessary.

And I have not even bothered to plan my weekday runs. I take it easy on Friday if I think I might do a long run the next day, but other than that I have just gone running when I feel like running, and have run as far as I felt like running. I've been able to ease up if I feel my hip injury acting up, and run long if I'm feeling good.

This morning was the first time I have felt any pressure. My marathon is three weeks away and my last long run (on which I finally reached my mileage goal by running over 20 miles) was three weeks ago. Due to pain and travel, another long run was not a possibility before this morning, and because running a long run too close to the actual marathon is just not smart (especially since I am prone to injury at this phase in the training) it was pretty much today or not at all. And six weeks seemed far too long to go between the 20-miler and the actual marathon.

But even with that pressure, I still managed the run. A friend reminded me that, technically, I could run on Monday or Tuesday, so it's not like today was the only day. I left a little get-together at my house for about half an hour to plant water bottles along my route. I've never done this before, but I hate carrying water with me because there is just no comfortable way to do it (and I have tried about everything imaginable). I deposited them around church buildings, expecting that no one would be wandering around their ward building picking up trash late on a Friday night or early on a Saturday morning. Even so, I scrawled "Please do not remove, Thanks!" on the lids and labels, just in case.

And when I went to bed last night, I was very careful to avoid thinking about the run the next morning. Every time the thought crept into my mind I reminded myself that I didn't have to run 20+ miles in the morning, that it wouldn't be the end of the world, or even my marathon, if I didn't. And so I managed to fall asleep with little problem, and to sleep through the night with minimal disturbance.

I didn't set my alarm clock (I almost never do anyway), but still woke up naturally at about 5:30 (my body tends to do that when it knows it's to my advantage to wake up early). I allowed myself to get ready at a leisurely pace, stepping outside in my pajamas to check the temperature, putting on my running clothes and shoes and wrapping a long-sleeved running shirt around my waist just in case I ran into some inclement weather miles from home (and right around Provo Canyon I was glad I had done that), eating part of a Luna bar and some water, brushing my teeth, stuffing my ID and three gels into the mesh pockets on the back of my running shorts, and finally getting out the door and running a little before six.

It was a beautiful run. Saturday mornings are the best time to run because no one is up and the streets are quiet. And it was overcast, too - I love running when it's overcast and the clouds hang low over Timp and there's just a little bit of precipitation. I knew the rough outline of my running route, based on where I had deposited the water bottles the night before, but I was at liberty to choose how to get to my "water stations" and I explored just a little. Two hours into the run I was feeling just a little worse for wear than I had been feeling last time I ran over 20 miles, but I was pacing myself better and I finished off the run strong. I didn't feel like I was going to keel over and die at the end of the last 100 yards (like I did last time) and I'll bet I could have gone another mile or two (but I really, really didn't want to), and my legs are just aching right now as I sit at my computer, but I made 22 miles and I'm feeling good.

So now my taper has officially begun. For all I've talked about, read about, given advice on the 100 Hour Board about tapering, this is completely new territory for me. I didn't get this far last year, and it's a little scary to realize that I really will be driving up to Ogden in three weeks, standing at the starting line, knowing that 26.2 miles lie ahead of me, hoping that I have it in me to make it. I don't have to do another long run (other than the marathon). I will be cutting back my running gradually until the week before I hardly run at all. My parents have already made plans to come up that weekend, and even a couple friends have told me they'd like to come cheer me on at the finish line. I have ordered my marathon running shoes and they will be coming in the mail within the next few days (unfortunately the local running store doesn't carry my shoe of choice, and I've learned from experience that other shoes just don't work as well for me). That will give me (hopefully) just enough time to break them in so that I don't have to run in my current pair which, after just four months, are already beginning to break down from so much mileage.

I really ought to go up to Ogden if I can spare an evening to check out the course. I need to talk to my brother and see if he's been running at all lately, and if he'd be interested in joining up with me for the last five miles or so to keep me going, or at least just keep me distracted, when I'm on the hardest stretch. I need to read up on what to eat before a marathon, find out where the drink stations are, buy some gels, watch the weather reports, decide what to wear in case of a storm (apparently it hailed at the Ogden marathon last year), find out when my parents are arriving, and pray that my hip survived today's run.

21 days...