One week left till the race, a scare but looking good

The past week has been interesting to say the least. I was travelling for work all week, luckily staying in one place … Berkeley, CA. The weather there was great and this was week one of the two week taper. I wanted to try and run between 50 and 55 miles and was doing well. Got my track workout in Monday morning before my flight, then managed 7 miles Tuesday morning and 5 on Wednesday. That left 5 to 7 for Friday, late dinner Wednesday meant Thursday wasn’t going to be an option.

Well Friday wasn’t an option either. I woke up not feeling great on Thursday and by lunch was in bad shape, couldn’t keep lunch down so I took a bite and decided that instead of staying at work for what was a really interesting discussion with a professor at Berkeley I needed some rest. So back to the hotel to take a nap and see if I could get something to stay down. What did stay down was a small pack of pringles and some water. Managed to eat a full dinner which was good and felt better as the day continued on Friday. It’s safe to say that mentally on Thursday night and Friday morning I was a little freaked out given the Portland marathon was just over a week away.

Saturday was a 16 mile long run. Good run, under control and no pushing of pace at all. Today was the Silicon Labs Marathon Relay. Larry wants to compete in the distance challenge and the race is required, the time doesn’t count but you have to run it … so we decided to use the race for our Sunday recovery run. I needed 10 miles so warm-up, my 10k leg and then just run a 5k leg. Pace was consistent and at 7:30 minutes/mile. I wasn’t planning on running hard at all and it was nice that 7:30 minute/mile pace just felt natural, this is on the faster end of what my easy paces have been this season. The legs may be tuning up well for the race in 7 days. Portland … Team Rogue is a comin’!

On another note … Jason ran his race today in Toronto and ran a comfortable 3:09:56 to get his Boston Qualifier!