Took this during today’s 10 miler. Absolutely spectacular sunrise.

OK, so, if you’ve been reading along, you know that I pretty much nailed last week.

HOWEVER, this week, not quite as much. Although, I was pretty happy to look down at my Hal Higdon app and see this:

Woohoo! Only 30 days left!

It still wasn’t horrible, but I just felt very tired today for my long run. I drug myself out the door with sheer will power as everything in me wanted to crawl back into my bed! Seriously, when I took those first few strides, my body was doing everything it could to talk me out of it. My legs felt heavy and my mind felt reluctant. Nothing was coordinating correctly and I felt slow and bulky and awful.

It opened up quite a bit in the middle (helped considerably by the beautiful scenery above) and I pushed the pace for the middle 3 miles or so, but toward the end we were right back to sluggish dragging runner Jen (for the record, I much prefer spry, spunky, speedy Jen).

But the week is done and we are, as Hal Higdon frequently says in my ear, forgetting what lay before and continuing on to what lies ahead.

Here’s how the week shaped up:

Monday – cross trained with walking and cleaning (yes, I count cleaning as cross training)
Tuesday – 4 miles easy
Wednesday – 5 miles at race pace. This actually ended up faster than race pace and was a really good run.
Thursday – rest
Friday – 3 miles easy
Saturday – 10 miles, 3 at goal race pace.

I’m under a ton of emotional stress right now and I think it’s playing into my running. On a podcast I was listening to a few runs ago, they were discussing how stress in your life plays out in your body and that sometimes emotional stress can make you feel worse than over-training. I think that might be what’s going on. So this week, as I head into my final full week of training before taper, I’m going to engage in some serious self and soul care.

Yeah, I know, it’s Christmas and we have a ridiculous amount of stuff going on. We’re having a party next week, I’m attending several, and, to top it all off, our Christmas is  happening on the 23rd instead of the 25th (Scott has a trip over Christmas this year). The boys are in the middle of schedule crazies; the college one has finals and the other two have schedules that would put Paris Hilton to shame (including, just this week, a wrestling tournament, a Quinceanera, and a progressive dinner – no I’m not kidding). It’s insaneville around here!

Me playing the Holiday Cheer Meister for our Church’s big Christmas Party! Yeah, because I don’t have enough going on;). Oh, I’m the one in the middle. My friend Shannon is the tree on the left and that’s Lindsey on the right. They’re both crazy.

I know I’m not alone – my BRF, Sara, mentioned that the Disney marathon is really poorly timed for moms because we’re so busy this time of year and then we’re in our biggest training weeks at the same time! She’s right. But the reality is, there is no CONVENIENT time to train for a marathon, especially for those of us with jobs and families, so I’m going to put my big girl pants on and deal.

Look what came! OK, this is helping me get excited!

Oh, and for the record, when this and Star Wars are over, don’t expect to see me running more than 3 miles at a time. For like a really, really long time.

Happy Running!

Jen