Welcome to week 11 of our Marathon Training Blog series! Click here to read week 1!

Week 11:

Monday: Rest–yep.

Tuesday: 4 miles in 42m, 3s with an average of 10:31 min/mile. We ran outside and I felt like I was struggling to keep up with Brian. It was a little muggier than it’s been lately so the air felt super thick.

Wednesday: Crosstrain. Wednesdays are so insane. Crosstrain happens as I can get it in in the form of squats and lunges and groceries and push ups and just whatever I can do to be extra active. We’re having meetings at church every Wednesday for a while so that’s added a little extra kink into the schedule, but I’m getting it in as best I can.

Thursday: 4 miles in 40m, 34s with an average of 10:09 min/mi. Folks, if you have been following these blog posts you know this is a PR for me!!!!!!!!!!!  I don’t know what came over me that morning. We ran at the gym because there were thunderstorms in the area. I started a bit faster than I normally do and bumped the speed at 5 mins in expecting to slow back down after 5 mins and do sort of an interval thing. Well, I felt so good after that 5 mins that I just kept slowly increasing the pace. I beat my husband by almost 2 minutes!!!!  It was an epic day and just the confidence boost I needed at this point in training.

Friday: CT or Rest. Rest.

Long Run Saturday–14 miles. Longest run we’ve done to date. We ran it in 2:57:14 with an average of 12:39 min/mile. The first 10 miles were relatively easy. We started out very early and it was way too dark. I made a mental note than I want to start carrying a hand held flashlight as I tripped on a giant rock on the trail and slid.

We had to run with two bottles of water (one disposable that we used to refill our regular bottles and then throw away) and packed two banana applesauce pouches and a baggie with 2 tbsp of honey. It’s a struggle to come up with enough calories to pack without using the super processed sugar products out on the market. The run went great until about mile 11.

Mile 11 has been notoriously my hardest in every half-marathon we’ve completed. That’s when the hips get sore and the knees start to throb a little and the reality sets in that we still have more miles to go. Brian backed off around that time because we were on a trail and he was trying to be cautious with his toes. They did well with a new KT Taping Method, but he was still nervous and wanted to be careful. We tried two different walk-run methods this week. Me on the 2:1 and him on the 1.5:.5. It stunk. We were separated the whole time, but within eye sight of each other. We rarely were able to run next to each other and thus we really didn’t talk. I had my worship playlist running which helped, but those last 3 miles were so disheartening. The doubts began to creep in for me. How in the world are you going to be able to run 26.2 more miles if you’re struggling to run 14? How much pain will you be in if you think this is bad? In the end, we finished. We immediately had to quick stretch and shower and head out the door and I was so worried we would be sore.

We survived. We were sore, but not nearly as bad as we felt after our last 3 half-marathons. I began thinking of the second half of training. We have 3 more big scary runs ahead. 16 miles (9/1/18), 18 miles (9/15/18), and 20 miles (9/29/18). Prayers are greatly appreciated for these three runs!  We may be calling on some of our faithful friends to meet us with water along the way :).

Sunday: 3 mi EZ. I’m done caring about this one :).

So, the final assessment of week 11:

90%, A.  I’m proud of this week, but the reality of what’s ahead of us is definitely setting in.

This morning, I sent a text to my son on his first day of college classes for the fall. I told him, “In the moments you feel overwhelmed, think good. Because that just means that’s where God gets to meet you and see you through. We will always have more than we can handle so that His glory and power will be on display.” So, at the moment, I’m feeling pretty overwhelmed by the mountain in front of us. But maybe it’s time for me to stop whining to God about this mountain and start telling this mountain about how great my God is (credit to Mark Batterson, Draw the Circle). We will get to that finish line. If I have to crawl and if it takes me 26.2 hours to complete it, we will get there. God will meet us all along the way and drag us when we can’t take another step. I’m so thankful for the reminder that I am weak. Because when I’m weak, He is STRONG (2 Corinthians 2:10).