Preparing for Race Day

So this is it, 11 days until my marathon!  I cannot believe it!  I started training on January 13th but it really does not seem like it has been that long, although I do feel kind of like I used to when I was in school and mentally checking out before it was actually the end.  Sometimes my body seems to be screaming at me to stop.  It has always gotten a long break after my 13.1 mile races, but it has had to push through much more than that over the past months.  As i write this my left leg is elevated with several different pains and sensations that I have been dealing with for the past couple of weeks stemming from my 18 mile mother's day run.  The run itself felt great.  I refueled at 10 miles and was still feeling strong and excited to complete the last 8 which I took mile by mile, step by step.  The last two miles I was so excited that I was almost done, it gave me an extra burst of energy for the end, and when I finished I was sooooo happy!  For the first time in a long time I truly believed that I would be able to complete the whole marathon without a problem.  I completed a good stretch and an ice bath after the run hoping to have a good recovery.  It was later in that day that my legs started to feel a little achy, but I expected it after such a long distance; however I did not expect that those aches would be continuous.  It was probably around mile 15ish that I started getting this weird feeling in the inside of my left arch, at first I thought it was the tongue of my shoe sliding or pulling to the other side, but then I realized that it was something in my arch pulling.  It didn't hurt but just felt odd, and definitely not normal.  It went away after the run and I didn't think much of it until it happened again during my next run.

The next run after 18 miles and a recovery day was really difficult.  I did not realize just how sore my legs were until I started running.  Specifically, my left outer back leg above the knee.  It started to feel better during the run, but has remained with me and it is still sore to walk on.  Additionally the arch of my left foot continues to feel not right.  It's not in pain, but it just feels abnormal.  On a happy note, my toenails have remained pretty unaffected by the running which is an improvement from before when two of my toenails were ready to fall off... (excited they have improved enough to go get a french-tip pedicure after the race!)  I have implemented some foam roller routines to try and help relieve the soreness and I found this page to be really helpful:

FitSugar.com

So enough complaining for one post!  On a different note, I am now in the tapering portion of my training which is awesome because it means less miles, and less intensity in order to allow my legs some recovery time before the marathon.  I was scheduled for 20 miles this past Sunday, but after reading several articles,  I came to the conclusion that the last long run should really be 3-4 weeks prior to the marathon.  This information combined with the fact that my left leg was still really sore on Sunday led me to the decision to do a 10 mile run instead.  I figure it is better to be safe than sorry and injure myself when I'm so close to race day.  The following are links to the articles I read on tapering and preparing for race day that I found to be pretty helpful.

The Marathon Long Run

It's Taper Time

When Should You Run Your Last Long Run?

These next 11 days will be really important to my training, I will want to do enough to stay ready, but not too much to be too worn out for the marathon.  Additionally I will need to really dial in my nutrition and calorie intake, to make sure I am fueling my body with the right nutrients that my body will need to sustain me for the 26.2 miles.  I will continue to do some more research on the best foods for me to be eating during my last week of training and come back to share my findings.  I'm really starting to get butterflies as I type "last week of training"!  LastlyI want to share the video of the course I will be running, it's a pretty cool fast moving view and really gave me some better insight into just how long 26.2 miles is!   It's fun to watch.  I'll be back soon to share my finals thoughts before I set out next Sunday morning to conquer my first marathon!