Wow, I can’t believe that in less than 3 weeks, I will have finished my second marathon!

It has been a crazy few weeks and unfortunately I haven’t done an weekly update since week 11. I apologize for that, but to make up for lost time here is the last few weeks in a nutshell:

• In the past 3 weeks I’ve flown 8 times on Delta
• I’ve run in five different cities: Tampa, Charleston, Savannah, New York, and Los Angeles
• I ran my fastest mile ever during last week’s speed work session
• I had one great 20 miler and one horrible 20 miler that has given my the mental strength to know I can conquer the New York City marathon again this year.
• As long as the weather is on my side, I’ve chosen my race day outfit.
• I’m finally excited about the marathon and have decided to re-read A Race Like No Other.
• Now that I’m pumped for the race, I’m loving the ING NYC Marathon Daily Tips emails they are sending out to runners! So, now that I’ve gushed about my excitement and given you the skinny on the last month, let me give you the update on the past week of training.

Week 14 Actual: October 10-16th

Monday: 4.0 mile basic run with striders

Tuesday: 4.0 mile speed workout (1 mile warm up, 1 mile at 8:54, 1 mile at 8:04, 1 mile cool down)

Wednesday: 3.0 mile easy run

Thursday: personal Training

Friday: rest day

Saturday: 20 mile long run in Tampa with Meghann

Sunday: rest day

Total mileage: 31 miles

I took two rest days this week though Sunday was more like a recovery day since I danced into the wee hours of the night after Saturday’s long run.

My goals for this week’s training are as follows:

• Two yoga sessions
• Focus on the nutritional goals I’ve set for myself during the last 3 weeks of training
• Make sure that I follow each of my running workouts perfectly, including mileage and pace suggestions from my coach, Marc.

Week 15 Plain: October 17th-23rd

Monday: 4.0 mile basic run with striders

Tuesday: personal training session

Wednesday: 5.5 mile speed workout

Thursday: personal Training + yoga in the evening

Friday: rest day

Saturday: 13 miles (I am actually going to run the last 13 miles of the marathon route! If you’re interested in joining, please leave a comment as a group of us are organizing a last 10 mile run.)

Sunday: yoga

Total mileage: 22.5 miles

Also, if you have any marathon training questions, please leave a comment as I am working on my own Marathons+Moderation post and would love to address any questions during my post this week!

Happy Tuesday, I think? Unfortunately, I’m not feeling 100% which means that I’ve been chugging green tea, Dayquil, and water like it’s my job. I feel like this is the marathon’s way of telling me that I’m an idiot for traveling so much during marathon training.

Just to put things in perspective, let’s review my travel schedule for an eight week time period:

• San Francisco August 9th-11th
• Chicago August 11-13th
• Philadelphia August 13th
• Philadelphia August 19th-August 21st
• Cincinnati August 24th-August 28th
• Philadelphia September 17th-September 18th
• Los Angeles September 21st-September 25th

As you may recall, during week six I ran in two different cities, New York and Philadelphia. My total mileage for the week came to 28 miles, just short of the 30 mile mark, which I was hoping to exceed during week seven.

Monday: 5 mile tempo workout

Tuesday: 3.1 miles speed workout

Wednesday: 4.5 mile hill workout in Central Park

Thursday: elliptical+weight workout

Friday: rest day

Saturday: 14 mile long run in Philadelphia

Sunday: 1.5 mile walk+1.5 mile run in Philadelphia

Hands down, my favorite part of last week was running with friends for 3 of my 5 runs!

During all that travel, I’m also supposed to be training for a marathon. No pressure, right? So far, I’ve really been trying to look forward to each new city since it means a long run in a new city each week, rather than the monotony of running the Hudson River path each week. While it’s worked so far, I feel like the travel is starting to catch up with my health and drain my immune system. Therefore, I skipped this morning’s run in favor of sleep. After taking a dose of Nyquil last night at 9:30, I slept soundly until 7:30 this morning. Clearly my body is screaming for rest. My sinuses feel like they are about to squeeze my head, I’m paler than normal, and my normal energy is definitely absent. All I want to do is curl up in bed and sleep for hours upon hours.

Therefore, this week’s plan will look a bit different than past weeks. I’m going to cut back on workouts this week and use it as a mini step back week of sorts.

Monday: Personal training session

Tuesday: rest day

Wednesday: Personal training session

Thursday: 12 mile run in Cincinnati

Friday: 4 mile shake out run in Cincinnati

Saturday: yoga and 3 miles of speed

Sunday: We’ll see how I feel after Saturday night’s wedding!

I don’t like that my mileage is so low at this point in marathon training but I think I need to listen to my body this week. Luckily, after this week’s travel my schedule settles down for a few weeks.

Question: Do you step back your workouts when you’re feeling under the weather?