Two Trials

A little MP session (1 X 5K) .  Once again the goal is just to give the legs a little stimulus so they don’t forget about what’s coming on Sunday.  I squeezed these  7 miles in before drawing Maddie’s blood,  running it to the hospital, finishing up our last bit of  packing and heading off to Boston.  A busy day.

Another easy shake-out run in the afternoon.  The weather’s been great this week and we’re starting to look forward to Sunday.

A little speed session, just to give the legs a little stimulus.  5 X 1k at 10k pace.

An easy 7.5 miles.  This week will be full of easy or “shakeout” sesson along with a few up tempo sessions.  Trying not to get too antcy during this last week.

Medium long run of 14 miles this morning.  I felt OK, but still sluggish from a lack of sleep and from the emotional strain of Maddie’s current treatment regimen.  I kept thinking throughout the run that I hope I feel better next Sunday, because 26.2 miles is a long way to go feeling sluggish and low energy like I did.

Only 2 more days of steroids for Maddie, so my days as a short order cook will thankfully be coming to a close.  Just think how much more time I’ll have in my day and how much our grocery bill will go down!

An easy tempo session of 5 miles at marathon pace.  I felt really sluggish, perhaps due to the early (3am) wake-up for the last several nights.  Too little sleep for us and too much cooking for the  steroid crazed little munchkin leads to a tired marathoner.  I’m hopeful that this little life imbalance with balance itself out once the steroids are done on Monday and I’ll have a chance to rest in order to arrive at the starting line somewhat refreshed.

So, today was an interesting day.  In fact, I like to think of it as the secret recipe for the taper before the marathon.  Maddie awoke at 3:30am; she’s been doing that lately due to the steroids.  I heated up some pizza and made a PBJ sandwich for the little munchkin, put on a movie for her (Cars is her movie of choice right now), and at 4am I headed out the door for my run.  I ran 8 miles in the dark, hoping desperately that the road wouldn’t jump out and trip me.  Luckily, I feel like I know these roads like the back of my hand, so I could probably navigate them blindfolded.   When I got back home, my mom had  also fixed her a hot dog and some cereal, and this amount of food was all consumed by 5am!   Being Friday, we needed to draw blood, so I put the cream over Maddie’s port; then, I jumped in the shower, since I had to be at work by 7am.  After my shower, I got ready for work.  The blood draw went very smoothly (thankfully)!  By 6:15am I was off to work for a 12-hour shift in the ER.  Just another day in the life, I suppose, but only 4 more days of steroids…

Mellow speed workout - 5 X 1200 meters at 10k pace.  Felt pretty good.  Nothing too exciting to report.  One of the last up tempo sessions before the race.

An easy 5.5 miler this morning.  A cold morning, I donned tights, jacket, hat, and gloves.  The ephemeral warmth of yesterday teased me into thinking today may be the same.

An incredibly beautiful day.  I actually ran comfortably in shorts and a long sleeve t-shirt.  The sky was crystal, clear blue.  As I passed by the south end of the runway of the small airport, the home of “wicked good aviation”, near our house one plane was just taking off.  When the road wound around the north end of the airport a couple of miles later, another plane was landing.  Even though I hate flying, the beauty of the day almost made me want to fly.  I went for a leisurely jaunt over to Westport Island.  As I was making my way up the “monster hill” from Westport, which has kicked my butt as many times as I’ve conquered it (very humbling), a Subaru wagon slowed behind me and a man yelled out to me,”Good luck next Sunday, we’ll be there watching.”  That support was pretty inspiring, and I cranked it up the hill notching a moral victory on my belt.