The Final Countdown

Cory found some old pictures while cleaning out our spare-music-office-guest room today. Some of them were pictures of him as a teenager--including a classmate of his that I was MADLY in love with as a pimply-faced, permed 12 year old girl. Sean Pegram was his name. Oy Vey...the memories. Too funny.

He also found a stack of pictures from his 10 year high school reunion we attended 3 Summers ago. It was astonishing to see the "old" me. The pictures were taken about 5 months before we joined Weight Watchers. I had begun to do a few things on my own to get my health under control--so had dropped maybe 10-20 pounds at that point. But not enough to make a huge difference. That would come in the next 2 years.

Looking at the pictures, I think it has finally sunk in my own brain that I am not the"old" me. She's a distant cousin--you can see the resemblance, but it's not me. She's definitely not the person I always felt I was. I feel like my mind is finally catching up with my body. It's a VERY strange thing to lose 125 pounds. (yes, folks.....125. It's not an exaggeration.) More than the physical changes, there has been (and continues to be) many mental changes to conquer and adjust to. In a way, I feel like I've had to completely re-learn who I am. I KNOW how very cliche' that sounds--but honestly, the best way I can describe an overall feeling is that I've had to rediscover who I am.

When I began to really get serious about exercise, the thought of running never even crossed my mind. It was a struggle to walk a 3.5 mph pace for more than 30 minutes. As I shed some pounds and was able to do more and running came into the picture--I never thought that I would ever run more than a few minutes--or ever have the desire to go any further. As I began training for my first 5k, I remember struggling to hold a 12 min. mile and wondering how in the heck anyone could run faster or further??? But many things kept me motivated and striving to go a little longer and a little harder.

Thinking back to beginning the marathon training, it seems impossible it was more than 6 months ago that I decided to take this on. I can't believe the progress I've made--how far I'm able to run and the pace I'm able to keep. It has been (and continues to be) a VERY interesting ride to say the least. Always learning something new. Always readjusting my thinking. Setting and Facing new goals/challenges, no matter now big or small--in every run.

I'm thrilled to be on the beginning of my taper. I'm anticipating missing the intensity that I've been training at, but I know I have to begin reserving my energy to be well rested and prepared for the "race". I know I'm going to have to start cutting back a bit on my food intake while I'm running less. It's good practice though--a continuation of better habits.

So for tapering they say the first week of your taper, you should reduce your total weekly mileage to 75% of your last big week. I ran about 41 miles the previous week, so I did a total of 31 this past week. I had closer to 4 weeks of taper than the usual 3 built in to my program. So This week I will reduce by another 15 - 20%. Mostly, I will be eliminating my Thursday run. I will end up doing about 25 miles this week.

I had an excellent 14 mile run yesterday. I tried a little something different with my pacing early on in the run, and I think it really helped for me to have a little extra kick of energy towards the end. There were a couple of runners ahead of me for a good portion of my run yesterday that I tried to keep pace with. It was good motivation. They were just enough faster than me that I had to really stay on my toes. I finished in 2 hrs;16 min; 04 seconds. That's a 9:43 per mile pace. If I can run that pace for 14 miles, I should be able to maintain the 10:35 pace I want to hold for the full marathon. A reminder though that my overall goal is to just finish the darn thing. My secondary goal is to finish in 4:30-4:40.

So this week will probably be 5 miles easy Tuesday, 5 miles/tempo run Wednesday, Thursday off, 3 miles easy Friday, 12 mile long-run Saturday. (I am doing the long run Saturday rather than Sunday this week because of Father's Day travels).

Okay, I've blabbed enough. Stay tuned.