High Mileage Mama

This will be the highest mileage week of my running career.  If I run all the miles, that is.  So far so good.  I had my legs/back/core session with the evil troll that trains me twice a week (the evil troll being a very pretty, extremely fit, 30-odd year old woman that I like very much) yesterday, and today I took my sore glutes and quads out for an easy 5 miler.

I went out for the run with no real plan except to avoid the ridge where the wind would have been soul sucking.  I ended up sort of meandering around the neighborhood, bored out of my gourd, checking my Garmin every 15 seconds to see how much more distance I had to "find" to get to my 5.  The wind was pretty awful.  I am so sick of running in this demon wind that I could spit nails...if I wasn't pretty sure I would ultimately end up eating those nails.

Lesson learned.  If I need to hit specific distance, I need to have a plan!  If I'm just running to run, willy nilly is perfectly fine...not so much if I'm on a schedule.

Tomorrow I'll hammer out a 10 miler before work (probably my old tried and true route, just because I know it is exactly 10 miles and will land me right back at my house), then 5 miles on Thursday.  I'm undecided about how I'll handle Thursday...might be a walk, might be a run depending on how much rest I think I'll need before (drumroll)

MY FIRST 20 MILER!!!!!!

Which will go down on Friday (my day off).  My plan is to park in the Cherry St. ramp and run the Fox River Trail through Green Bay, Allouez, and De Pere south towards Greenleaf and then back again.  This is a part of the marathon course (well, not south of De Pere) and I'll be hitting the parts of the trail where I'll likely be the most tired/beaten down/self loathing/sick/crampy on marathon day at about the same distance as on race day.  I think this makes it the perfect dress rehersal.  I do plan to do a 22 miler before beginning my taper, but that will be a looping course I think.

Will I make it or won't I?  Will I actually pound out 40 miles this week?  I've never run so many miles in one week before (and yes, I know there are people out there that run 70-100 miles a week, but that ain't me m'kay?) and I am alternately really excited and really scared. 

I find the idea of a 20-miler exhilarating...hopefully I'll find the reality that way, too.

Mostly, though, I just don't want to barf or shit myself.