Wineglass Marathon in 8 Days...


Sometime in July, I registered for the Wineglass Marathon in New York. I had been planning to go back East to see my grandparents and while Corning, NY is more than 6 hours from my hometown, it's only about 3.5 hours from my husband's hometown. And I have a real soft spot for roadtripping. Even if it involves some initial flying. I can already see myself being retired with an RV. So long as by the time I'm retired, we've improved fuel efficiency because I cringe at the thought of less than 20 MPG.

Anyway, it's a flat course. 269 feet of climbing (whoop dee do, I do more than that on my usual 4 mile route from my house) and 469 feet if descent. So, 200 feet of loss over 26 miles. Not sure you can find an easier course (well, Ojai 2 Ocean or St. George might be easier, if you're quads are up for some pounding).

Then I worked myself too hard into this shin problem which I have self-diagnosed as some kind of compartment-syndrome type thing. Especially considering when I wore flats last week on an off-running day my shin muscles (both legs) were ridiculously angry. The next day I ran 6 miles and wore heels to work (which I haven't done in months) and my shin muscles were happy/unstressed.

The last 20+ run I did was 26.2 on 8/4. Yeah. We're talking 8 weeks from race day. I took 6 days off at the end of August at the end of a 50K taper which left me with only 5 weeks to race day to attempt to ramp back up as close to 20 miles as I could safely get. I was left with the choice of ramping up too fast (bad idea with a questionable shin), compromising to less then 20, and/or taking a shorter taper. I compromised with 18 miles and a 2 week taper.

The last month has looked like this:

Nice contrast from July to August, right? Sigh. 50 flipping miles. The plan was to be around 160 again but, hey, I had a nice run of it. I did 18 last weekend with Nicole starting before the sun rose at 5:45am, completing it at 9:00 pace (nearly on the dot - a fraction of a second under). And then into taper. 6 miles twice last week and 10 miles this morning @ 8:47 pace. My plan is to do 4-5 on Monday, and then 4 on Wednesday. Then we leave for Pennsylvania (well, we land at Reagan and drive into po-dunk central PA).

I honestly don't know what to expect. I have dropped a pound or two with all the spinning - I think it's actually been harder/tougher in some ways than running. I have only been taking 1-2 days off. But I just don't know if substituting cycle for running 2-3 days a week is enough to allow me to run well. I kind of don't think so, but, really, I have no idea. I haven't run a marathon on such low mileage in a long time (specifically June 2003 at SD RnR and it didn't go well. PW for that one at 4:30:15).

I know I'm going to have fun because even at SD RnR when I was hurting, I still enjoyed it. The marathon experience is really fun for me. It's like it still feels "new" -- like a big accomplishment even though I've done it 6 times before. But the fact that the course is a PR course and I'm not in the shape I'd like to be, just seems like a wasted opportunity. I've done the best I could with the situation, and my leg is feeling pretty good, so, I think I should consider it a successful salvage of what could have been another DNF.


Comments

  1. That is sad that you can't take full advantage of that course. It sounds amazing. If it doesn't go well, you have the consolation of hanging out with your family afterwards -- so the trip will definitely not be wasted.

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  2. Well my friend you never know. You have a great base (hello ultra runner) and beings that your shin feels good I am confident that you are going to run a solid race. I'll be thinking about you this weekend as I am sweating my ass off in this ridiculously hot weather. Sigh. Where is FALL?!?

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