Fitness Friday: One Week Countdown

I love fall mornings in the park with the mist over the Great Lawn

We're a total of 9 days away from the NYC Marathon and sh*t has gotten really real over the past few weeks.  We've received our bib #s and start times and I've completed my 20 mile long run.  I came back from my forced 10 day break and got right back into things and was feeling great and somewhat caught up on mileage so I decided I was ready to tackle a full 20 mile run (part of me had debating just doing 18 because I was nervous as hell...).  It went off without a hitch and was one of the best long training runs I've ever had.  Needless to say it gave me a ton of confidence for the big day!  I am gearing up for the "last 10" mile run this weekend - it's organized by Jack Rabbit and Nike and we run the last 10 miles of the marathon course.  Undoubtedly some of the hardest miles because it has the most hills and it's where people tend to start to struggle a bit.  This part of the course was fairly blurry to me from the last time I ran the marathon because all I could focus on was getting across the finish line and trying to block out the pain I was in.  So I'm definitely ready to soak in this part of the course and know there won't be many surprises on race day. 

Pre-20 mile run!

Post-20 mile run and still smiling!!!

I'm also in the "taper" phase where mileage has decreased significantly and if you know any other runners this phase can be a little bit of a mind f*ck as well.  You start to feel phantom pains that weren't there before and it's also a bit of an emotional roller coaster (in weird ways I can't really explain).  For example, I got super depressed last Friday because work had been so busy and I was just exhausted and feeling really alone/isolated because I had made zero plans except my long run.  A little weird, I know, but all part of the training I guess! 

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