Two Weeks... To Go!

"When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing, then we truly live life."
-Greg Anderson

This past week I reached a goal that I had silently set for myself, which was to win this ridiculous cross country race in Richmond. I've run it twice before and finished second both times. There's something about being second that really gets to me. Plus, both times I have run this race my time has been awful. My 6k PR of 20:17 is faster than I've run on this 5k course before. So, I was happy to win the race and happy to run 19:45. The time doesn't really matter, especially considering I've followed up both of my previous Maymont races a week later with a road 5k over 2 minutes faster. Ok, enough about that. The course is ridiculous though, I'm not exaggerating.

The rest of training this past week went well. I was not sore at all from the 22 miler, which was kind of unexpected. I took Monday off, ran 4 miles easy on Tuesday, 7 miles in 50 minutes on Wednesday, and took off Thursday (mainly because I was so exhausted and stressed from work that all I wanted to do was go home and crawl into bed- which I did). On Friday I ran the 5k and totalled 9 miles. Saturday I ran about 3 miles at the meet, sprinting up and down various parts of the course while my team raced. On Sunday I took it easy and ran my 17 miles with Pete. Total: 40 miles for the week.

I'm really looking forward to seeing my family in two weeks, doing some apple picking, and of course running this marathon. After the marathon, I'm also looking forward to a few other races I have planned. I'm not sure if I'm going to run another marathon in the early spring. I think it might be a good way to keep my base going over the winter before switching gears for my first track season in a loooong time. Not sure if a steeplechase is in the cards but hopefully a few fast 5ks and 1500s. I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's get through the next two weeks before I make any more big plans.