I have been feeling really tired all week this week. As a result I have been going to bed much earlier than usual and getting more hours of sleep per night. Yesterday evening after work I felt too tired to drive to any trails for my 8 mile run. I also felt too tired to deal with running on the roads around our house and dodging cars. Chances are I would look right at an oncoming car, but not register it, and then I’d probably get run over (no shoulders on our roads, so I usually have to get in the grass when a car goes by).

Not the place you’d want to run when you’re too tired to react to a car

Oddly enough I didn’t feel too tired to actually complete my run. So I ran 8 miles with Sven, just like on Wednesday. Things got a little rough around 2.5 miles and I actually wanted to take a walk break. I told myself “just make it to 4 miles and you can take a short walk break.” But instead, when I got to 4 miles, I ate two Shot Bloks and powered on. I decided I needed to practice mentally and physically pushing on and continuing to run even when I’m feeling fatigued. So that’s what I did and I actually ended up feeling pretty good the final 3 miles.

I can connect the dots on why I am feeling so worn out. I am coming off of 39 miles last week (a weekly mileage PR) and going right into my first of two peak weeks. So far this week I have run 24 miles in 3 days of running. Although each run has gone pretty well, it’s still a lot for me and I’m definitely feeling it. Today is a rest day and then tomorrow is my first of two 20 mile long runs. I am a bit nervous but I’m also looking forward to reaching this milestone.

It’s normal for me to feel tired during a peak week of marathon training, right? I don’t think I’m crossing over into the realm of overtraining. I’m not fighting lead legs, I haven’t lost interest in training (although sometimes it’s a bit daunting), and I’m not having trouble sleeping. But at the same time this is all new to me and I’m not sure if I’m over doing it. I guess if I crash and burn on my 20 miler, then I’ll know. And if that happens it won’t be the end of the world. I have another one on the schedule in two weeks. That one will be my last long run before I start tapering.

Do you wear a watch when you run/walk on the treadmill?
I have started wearing my Timex stopwatch, because I can’t ever remember my time for a run and I like to record it in my running log.
If you have trained for a marathon (or any long race) how did you feel during your peak week of training?

Any tips/tricks/advice/encouragement for the 20 miler would be greatly appreciated!!

This evening I decided to play it safe and run with Sven. I ran 8 miles, with the middle 4 at marathon pace. My middle 4 miles came in at 10:08, 10:09, 10:09, and 10:10. Bam, nailed it! Except all I had to do was set the treadmill speed and mindlessly run. Here are my feet on the treadmill. Hash tag proof and all that jazz. Except I’m not on Twitter. I am on Instagram, where hash tags are also used (or are they just called tags?), but chose not to give more than one branch of social media a picture of my feet this evening.

I look like I’m ten feet tall!

It was a run full of guilty pleasures. I started out listening to my iPod for the first 2.5 miles. Sven has an auxiliary plug, so I was able to plug my iPod right into the treadmill and listen to my music through the speakers. It sounded pretty good. I have a music confession. Right now I cannot get over the new Miley Cyrus song ‘Wrecking Ball’. I really like the chorus and I like running to it. Don’t get me wrong, I think the music video is distasteful. But the song… my new guilty pleasure.


From the Wrecking Ball parody since the real thing is inappropriate unless I want this to be an adult content blog

And from there I moved on to my TV guilty pleasure: Abby’s Ultimate Dance Competition. Really, it’s just the show that gets me through until Dance Moms comes back on. But secretly I like it almost as much as Dance Moms.

The best part about guilty pleasures? They make the miles fly by while I run on the treadmill. I pinkie promise I never got the least bit bored during the entire 8 miles. Plus I’m killing two birds with one stone. I’m getting my miles in and cleaning out our DVR.

What are your music and TV guilty pleasures?

How do you fight boredom on the treadmill?

Another week of training in the books. I ran all of my miles as planned, but I did not meet my goal of doing some cross training. I need to start mixing in some cross training on some of my rest days. I had to step away from cross training for a bit, as I adjusted to higher mileage, but I know it’s important to do more than just run. This week of training will include my first of two 20 mile long runs. Any tips on how to survive or encouragement would be much appreciated!

Monday- 7 miles at the high school track, including 8 x 800m. I went out too fast on the first two and felt like I spent the last 6 repeats hanging on for dear life. I think I definitely ran this a little harder than I should have, especially two days after my first-ever 16 miler. My legs were very sore afterwards, and my calves and left IT band were sore the rest of the week.

Tuesday- Rest day.

Wednesday- 7 mile run with Sven, with the 4 middle miles at marathon pace. It’s not hard to hit MP when all you have to do is set the speed and watch ‘Pitch Perfect’ while you do some vertical running.

Thursday- 7 mile run in the evening on the Dora and New River Trails. I moved this run from Friday to Thursday in an effort to let my legs rest before Saturday’s long run. It worked out for me last week. However, there wasn’t much good about the run itself. Little things were annoying me, it was insanely buggy outside, and my legs just felt tired. My calves were also pretty sore, and had been sore since Monday’s track workout. But I got it done, and the trails themselves were nice to look at with all of the changing leaves.

Friday- Rest day, and thank goodness because it was 80 degrees when I got home from work.

Saturday- First-ever 18 miler. This run got a post of it’s own. The short and sweet is things were good until they weren’t. As expected, I got more and more fatigued until I finally gave in to my first walk break at 15.5 miles. But it’s an accomplishment for me to make it that far before taking a break. This was the longest run I’ve ever done by 2 miles, and the first long run in awhile that I ran solo.

Sunday- Rest day.

Total miles: 39 (another weekly mileage PR)

This week’s schedule:
Monday: 8 miles
Tuesday: Rest/XT
Wednesday: 8 miles w/ 4 @ MP
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 8 miles
Saturday: 20 miles
Sunday: Rest