Time for the taper…

We have 3 weeks from today until the marathon. Our program called for 18 miles today, which is our last really long run, and then a decline in miles up until race day. Trevor and I decided to run 20, just to see how we felt mentally at that point. Many people say that’s about the time you will hit the “wall”, so we wanted to know we could get there and still live. We ran at Kensington Metropark. It’s always a challenging, but amazingly beautiful, course. If you are running a long distance, I really believe there few places in Oakland county more amazing than this park. I love that the 8 mile paved trail runs around the lake, so you are next to water most of the run, and there is a good mix of hills to spice things up a little. But there are also restrooms, water fountains, and lots of other runners to help you stay motivated. It is still my favorite place to run.

I woke up early to get ready for my 20 mile run by sipping on some tea and reading “The Ultra Marathon Man.” I have fallen in love with this book over the past few days. The author’s account of how he ran the Western States Endurance run, a 100 mile run, is fascinating to me. Many people think he is crazy for devoting his life to running, but he points out that running is his vice, his way to focus his energy into something that he feels is worthwhile for him. There are plenty of people that watch hours of TV each day, or go out drinking at bars, or gorge themselves on food, etc, etc, all he is doing is running. Trevor has read this book also, and it has really helped with our runs. Today at mile 16 (this was our fastest 16 yet) we were still feeling pretty strong, and had a strong finish. We kept thinking “If Dean (the author of that book) can run 100 miles through rivers, up mountain passes, while super-gluing his blisters together, we can certainly cover 20 miles.” It looks small compared to what this guy was doing.

We had great weather today, cool in the morning, and a slight breeze off the lake. There were plenty of other runners who would say good morning (we were out there at 8am) and some offered words of encouragement. And we always give words of encouragement or say hi to others, even if they don’t respond back. Hopefully, it helps them in some way.  There was one lady we passed twice on the run. She was probably in her late 30′s, maybe early 40′s. She did not seem like the runner type. I hate to stereotype, but if I would have seen her off the trail I would have never guessed she was a runner. The 2nd time we passed her she asked us how many miles we were doing today, and we told her 20 and that we were training for Detroit, and she responded that Detroit is a great marathon, it’s flat and if we can easily run Kensington we will be fine to finish the marathon. That made us feel pretty good. She said that she just ran a 1/2 marathon, and she will be running another marathon in December. We exchanged “good lucks” and went on our way. How cool that she was running in these races, and how quick of us to judge that she was not a runner type. She was doing great! And super friendly.

We fuel with Gatorade instead of water during our runs now, and eat a energy gel pack every 45 minutes to an hour. That seems to keep our energy levels up, and since we have not have one bad long run yet, it must be working. At mile 20 I was tired, but the last few miles we had a great pace, and passed several people in front of us, and finished strong. I feel like we could have finished 26 miles today, but maybe at a slightly slower pace. If the marathon turns out to be like our runs, we should be fine. Our goal is to have a great run and finish strong, and don’t really have a goal time in mind, although finishing under 5 hours would be nice.

I have come to realize that running a marathon is not so much about the marathon, 90% of the the marathon is the training. On marathon day, we complete one run. We eat afterwords, and maybe have some pain for the next week. But the training runs are what it’s all about. It’s everything you do before marathon day that really matters. Rest, nutrition, runs, everything else that goes into it. The marathon is just the icing on the cake.  I have had some great, and some not so great, experiences running this year since April. Those experiences are what is going to stay in my memory for a long time. I don’t plan on running another marathon again, but I love that in 3 weeks I will be able to say “yep, I finished a marathon.” Then I can try something else new…

Love it!

*Jen*

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