The Recovery:
First of all, thanks SO MUCH to everyone who left such supportive and encouraging comments following my 30K survival shuffle. I truly, truly appreciate it.

My 30K results are finally posted. For about a day, only finish times up to 4:00 hours were posted and I was worried that perhaps I didn’t actually finish the course within regulation time. Then, I checked the results again and there I was, with a time of 4:08. They don’t have any 10K splits for me and listed my chip time the same as the gun time, but it’s probably only a difference of 10-20 seconds so no biggie.

I’m pretty much recovered from Sunday. No more soreness/stiffness, and mentally I’m feeling a lot better than I was on Monday. Last night at the gym, I decided to forego a run on the dreadmill and spent 45 min on the bike instead. It was nice to take a break from running and give my quads a much needed workout.

The 21-Miler:
Saturday’s HoustonFit training run is 21 miles and has all the works - police officers at traffic intersections, water stops, a first aid station and EMTs on bikes. Plus, Fort Bend Fit is joining us. With a 5:30am start time, those Fort Bend Fit people are gonna have one verrrry early commute. I have a hard enough time making it from the Med Center.

Anyways, I haven’t decided whether I’m running the full 21 miles (stopping at water stops), or joining the 5/1 group (run 5 minutes, walk 1 minute, repeat). Doing the course 5/1 would be easier on my legs and I’d still get the mileage in….on the other hand, this is the longest run before January 15th, and it would be good to treat this as a full “dress rehearsal” for the Marathon. Anyways, I’m going to see how I feel on Friday and make a decision then.

The Countdown:
The marathon is a month from TOMORROW. Amazing. Although there isn’t a whole lot of training time left before I start tapering, there are some goals I want to work on before January 15th:

• Strength - I really haven’t been keeping up with any pilates/core exercises or strength training like I should, and I can feel the difference in my runs and overall fitness. So, back to a regular routine of stretching and weights!
• Diet - Basically, I need to stop eating so much crap. heh. More greens, more protein, more complex carbs. Not a problem - except for the fact that I’ll probably have to cut back on my visits to Star Pizza. mmmm…deep dish Margarita pizza…..
• Runs - Now that my work hours are calming down for the holidays, I’ll be getting out of the office earlier (6pm) giving me better running options than the dreadmill. Ugh. It’s definitely better than not running at all, but it’s not much fun running on a human-sized hamster wheel.
• Mental - Since Sunday, I’ve been reading various articles on sports psychology for runners, mental training, etc. I need to strengthen my strategies against negative thoughts that might pop up before/during a race. It’s been really interesting to read sports psychology theories on peformance, cognition and behavior among athletes. Yes, I’m a nerd.
• Sleep - I need to get more sleep during the week. Pretty simple and straightforward.

It may be too close to January 15th for these things to make much difference (especially the strength training), but at least working on them will give me better confidence on race day.