This is it! I’m officially on my LAST training week of Phoenix Marathon. WOW.

Last week was a tough, tough week health wise. We were all sick and dad was out of town the entire week and this mommy was exhausted. I tried my hardest to make it all about resting and recovering for me. I’ve been soooooo sick and the taper crazies have been at an all time high as paranoia over whether I’ll get better by Saturday lingers in my head. My kids were also sick last week and either one or both of them stayed home from school the entire week. 😦

Luckily, it looks like we’re all on the mend. Fingers crossed that we all continue on the healthy train.

Okay, last Sunday and Monday I did nothing but Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate. My knee was still being funny and that along with my cough was stressing me out big time. Monday, I was off from work because of President’s Day so I was able to just hangout at home with my kids (who were also sick that day).

Tuesday, I mustered up energy to meet up with my run club for my usual 5 miler. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it’d be considering how awful I felt. It might’ve been just what I needed to make me feel better 🙂

Wednesday I was supposed to go to track but I was just not feeling good. It had been a long night with my kids, my daughter especially, who was sick and wanted to sleep with mommy. I took a rest day and planned for a run on Thursday.

I was able to get in a pretty decent 4 miler the next day. Again, I felt good despite lack of sleep and a stuffy head.

Fridays are my usual rest days and my husband came home from his work trip 😀 I was SOOO excited for him to be home. I don’t function well without him and then on top of that, being sick made him being gone that much more tough to handle.

I managed to get a decent night’s sleep and my run the next morning, Saturday, was planned for 6 a.m. (sleeping in for me!). I met up with my run club and talked with a few friends. I was wanting to go 8 miles and most of my buddies were shooting for 6. I erred on the conservative side since I still wasn’t feeling good and oh boy, was I glad I did.

Those were tough 6 miles and they did nothing for my confidence level. My legs had the same heavy feeling they had when I ran Lost Dutchman the week before. I just felt sluggish and each mile felt like eternity. My average time definitely felt a lot worse than what it actually was: 9:33/mile.

But I got it done and I celebrated my last long run of the training cycle by heading straight to my daughter’s last soccer practice 🙂 Technically, next week is her last day but because of mommy’s marathon, we’re missing the official last day.

Goooooo team! (My daughter’s in the pink–total mommy fail for not having her in uniform lol!)

On Sunday I had big plans to go to a book signing. I’m an English teacher and I am always looking to see what authors are visiting the valley. Well a couple of weeks ago, I got an e-mail notification from one of my favorite bookstores that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was doing a signing of one of his young adult books! Basketball? Books? YES!!!

I got to the bookstore early despite having been assigned a group letter (I was C and yeah, it went all the way to Z!). My buddy and got in line and then one of the bookstore people asked if I’d hold the Group Letter for my group: my first official pacer job! 😀

I take being a pacer seriously 😀

Two hours of standing later (yeah, that def wasn’t conducive to my tapering), I finally got to meet the big guy!

Yay!

It was so awesome. If you’ve been a reader of mine for a while, then you know that I’m a pretty huge basketball buff. Getting to meet Kareem is definitely a top moment for sure!

All in all, a decent week. I’m finally feeling better and I plan on just resting as much as I can as the big day approaches. I’m trying to have the same relaxed mentality I had for Fiesta and RnRAZ when I went in without much stress and ended with great results. I think it’s harder this time because this is THEE race I’ve been training for you know?

Total Miles: 15 miles

Water Intake: B+ (I did good this week! Only missed 2 days and not by a lot!)

–How was your running week?

–What athlete would you like to get an autograph from?