I am officially three weeks away from my 6th full marathon. The Miami Marathon is my absolute favorite race—not only because it is my hometown race and it’s where I train every day, but also because everything about the events that go on during the weekend, the race organization, and the course is so fun! I am looking forward to seeing all of the familiar faces from every year, as well as so many others I am going to get to meet. I will also be hanging out with the My Olympic Coach team at their booth at the expo both Friday and Saturday, so that will be pretty cool! Before all of this happens though, I need to really focus hard on getting in a few more quality sessions during my last peak week, as well as a proper taper.
I have a few workouts this week that have me feeling excited but nervous at the same time. Since I have had some not-so-good races this Fall, I am missing a bit of confidence to run the paces I need to run for my goal. The Turkey Trot in November, which was my very first 10k race, was the hardest race I have ever done (yes, harder than the marathon!). Most of you read in my recap post that the 10k basically leaves no room to makeup any lost time, whereas in the marathon, if you have a couple of slow miles, you have so many more to speed up on to catch up. I finished that race with a 6:34 average pace—slower than my best half marathon pace! A week and a half after the 10k, I ran a half marathon in West Palm Beach. Thankfully I went into that race with the mindset that I was just going out for a long tempo training run in prep for this month’s marathon. I ran a 1:30:58, which is over 5 minutes slower than my current half marathon PR. This really discouraged me at the time. Since then, I have had some pretty good training runs so I’m back to feeling more confident and I know those upsetting races landed on “off” days.
I am basically done with really, really long runs, so the rest of my workouts will be short to medium runs, with marathon-paced miles in the mix. My coach, Luis Orta, does such a good job planning my training with workouts that challenge my weaknesses. I have always had a hard time with long tempos and holding my goal pace for more than a couple of miles, so I have had plenty of these during this cycle. I’ll keep you updated as I get more of these completed these next couple of weeks.
Nutrition will also be a focus. I do well with my diet, but I tend to wait too long to eat after workouts and sometimes slack on getting in enough calories on my busier days when I am on the road working. I do my best running when I eat a high calorie/carb/protein diet. So, I will be eating A LOT now!
I am so thankful to everyone who has supported my training on Instagram! As much as many of my followers say I motivate them with my posts, it is all of them who truly motivate me to stay on track and keep pushing towards my goals. When I have had a few tough days and I dread my morning runs, all I have to do is log into Instagram and read a couple of posts of those who have gotten up much earlier than I have and accomplished an amazing workout. That pushes me right out of bed and inspires my whole day! So, thank you :)