I had already run 10 miles for the week, had struggled some with 8 miles in the heat the previous Saturday, so I thought I'd just do 8 again----maybe do it better this time. I ran with new friend and fellow mom Amy and had a good run. Even with Galloway's 4:1 plan, we averaged a 10:55 pace (including walk breaks). We were running pretty fast on the running parts to have a 10:55/mile average pace with basically two minutes of walking every mile.
Another reason NOT to do 10 miles was because the next morning I was taking the kids here and needed "fresh legs":
Holiday World is a wonderful amusement park two states away in Santa Clause, Indiana. It's medium-sized, not crowded, has free drinks and sunscreen all day, and a killer water park. This was really fun, like going round and round a very large drain: 
We had a great time and I feel like I walked another 8 miles (at least). We spent nine and a half hours at the park. It was quite a test of my endurance. Good thing I've been upping my mileage lately! Keeping up with my 7 and 5 year olds (the two-year-old stayed home with Daddy) was a test of my patience as well. Taking a road trip with the kids, over 350 miles round trip by myself was a long overdue test of my independence. I'd never done anything like that. We did meet our friends from St. Louis there, so I had another mom to hang with. It was a wonderful trip.
Monday was spent in recovery. All those hours outdoors in 96-degree weather with 90% humidity sucked the life out of me. Today, I need to get back into the Push Up Challenge, and I plan to REPEAT week 3. I completed days one and two only, so instead of getting off-schedule or moving on to week 4, I'll just do week 3 again. Week 3 is NO JOKE. I'm doing push ups in the 70's.
Regarding the marathon, seeing how I felt after 8 miles on Saturday, I honestly don't know if I can be ready by December. I know on Saturday when the group decided to do 10 miles instead of the planned 7-9, I thought, I have no desire to do 10 miles today. I could have done 10 with the 4:1, I just didn't want to. How am I going to feel when I have 18 or 20 on the schedule? Anyway, this is a drop down week, so I'll only have a few short runs. I'll see how I feel about 9 or 10 next week.
The biggest "con" I realized about running the marathon is that it will put me out of most of the local races in the fall. I LOVE to run races. I don't know why I will pay $20 to do a 3.1 mile run when I can do it right outside my door, but I just love the race atmosphere. I love the camaraderie. I love that nervous, excited feeling at the start. I love the way I feel as I cross the finish. I don't want to have to give up one of my two half-marathons in October. I don't want to give up running the R-3 Anniversary 5K again in August---the FIRST race I ever ran. I want to re-do all the races I did last year to see how much I've improved, and I did one a month all last fall! Marathon training will require that I miss most of those.
So, for the moment, I'm leaning toward not doing the Huntsville Marathon.
2 comments:
You could look into the Mercedes Marathon in mid February and still do all your races in the fall. It is just an hour and a half further south, and the course is challenging. Check it out at mercedesmarathon.com. And you get a beautiful medal!!
Hi Runnermom-
I was going to write that you could probably still run a 5K in August and a half marathon in October and then a marathon in December, but if you don't really, really want to, I wouldn't if I were you. Marathon training is very time consuming! On the other hand, if you really, really wanted to run a marathon, I'd say, "Do it!" but it sounds like you're having fun with the shorter races for now anyway. : )
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