Week 16: 31 miles

This update is a little late huh? Week 16 was solid. I was tired a lot of the time; it takes me a while to get over being sick. Maybe because I have MS, sometimes it takes weeks to get back to normal after being sick.

I was puzzled about how to rearrange my training because this was supposed to be the first week of my taper. But since I hadn't done my 20-miler, I wanted to get that in too. Looking back on it, maybe it would have been better to just skip the 20 and start the taper, but instead I reduced the mileage a bit during the week and got the 20 in on Friday. That long run was a shit show and my IT band really didn't cooperate, but I'm not going to dwell on it too much. Call it thinking positive, call it denial, but I am going to run this marathon no matter what my IT band has to say about it. I have spent almost a week freaking out that this will keep me from running the marathon, and that attitude is not doing anything for me.

With my MS, denial has served me pretty well. I mostly try not to think about having MS. I probably would never have considered running a marathon without a little bit of denial. It's not a perfect approach, because when I do experience MS symptoms, it's difficult to accept that I have the stupid disease all over again. And truthfully, while training for this marathon, I haven't been able to pretend like I don't have MS as much as I'd like. MS has always been there, just a few steps behind me. But I'm going to win this one.

During Week 16, our family volunteered at the Boston Marathon.



We were stationed at the 20k mark, and our job was to watch a big digital clock to make sure that no one messed with it. The job was pretty easy and we got to cheer for lots of runners.

After the race ended, Maple and I hopped in the car and drove 8 hours to my parents' house. It took me a day to recover from the drive (I'm such an old lady), but it was really nice to be there and to relax. I got to run in their beautiful rural neighborhood and my dad cooked most of my food. I felt like I was detoxing for most of the week because of my new diet (more about that later), but it was so great to be able to do it there instead of at work.

Pace range for this week: 8:46 to 11:22
Temperature range: 56 - 72 degrees

Details for Week 16 (Apr 16 - Apr 22):
Monday: 2 miles
Tuesday: 5 miles
Wednesday: 4 miles @ MP
Thursday: off
Friday: 20 miles (4 miles limping!)
Saturday: off
Sunday: off