Some Nice OC Running :)

As this is the last week before my Marathon, I'd normally spend the week (and, honestly, the few weeks before as well) tapering and taking it easy, to make sure I was all ready for the big day.

However, tapering means less running, and, really, that just seems like no fun at all! So, I made a compromise with myself, nothing too hard, but I still wanted to get in 40 miles this week (including the marathon), meaning that I'd still do normalish runs Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Tuesday's run was an easy 6.2 twice around Mission Viejo Lake just by myself. I still haven't located my Garmin from the move (note to self- unpack everything before the marathon!) so I was running without a clock. I usually purposefully do this before the marathon so that I don't get concerned about time, so perhaps it was good it was temporarily lost. I did, however, feel like I might have been pushing it a bit, since I was curious to how the hills around the lake would feel after a semester of trail work. They did seem to feel a bit easier, which was exciting, though my legs were still a little tired at the end. Afterwards I went to the gym to to weights, after a month or so haitus, and was reminded of how much fitness can be lost in a month :P

Wednesday called for a 5:45 am wake up call to meet up with the OCTR at 6:30 for a local trail run. I had such a good time and got to meet lots of wonderful people (many of whom are also doing the SD marathon this weekend). We did an easy 5 miler through Whiting Ranch, apparently also the home of at least a mountain lion or two, as Jessica recounted for me her own mountain lion encounter on these trails, as well as reminded me of the attack a few years back that had actually happened on the trails around there. Needless to say, I was glad to be running in a group! Afterwards Wendy and Skip very kindly invited me along to 24 hour fitness (Wendy nicely offered me a free day pass she had) where the proceeded to emphasize just how out of shape I was (in the nicest way) by putting me through a 'normal' workout for them that was probably one of the hardest non-cardio workouts I've ever experienced. Suffice to say, my abs and arms are letting me know today just how much they liked that workout :) They were both really so great and taught me a ton of moves that, with practice, will be great additions to my workout routines. I've always been sort of clueless about strength training, so it was really wonderful to have two knowledgable people showing me a really great routine.

This morning, I decided it would be great to go for a run with my dad, which meant another early wake up call so that we could be out the door by 5:45. We headed back down to the lake, since I only wanted to do 3 miles today, and had a very nice lap in the early morning light. Thankfully, since that was my only thing to do today (thank you summer vacation!) I was able to come home and go back to sleep after the run until 10:00 :).

Now the taper is officially in gear, with no running tomorrow or saturday. I leave for SD Saturday morning and will hopefully meet up with some OCTR people at the expo. Wendy and I are looking at running a similar pace, so we might try to set up running together at the race.

And, since it's the last day of the month, here's the total!

Miles run: 153.7

That beats my current best (which was, not too surprisingly, last month) by 10 miles! This month also featured my highest mileage week ever, with 51.2 miles the week before last. How exciting!

I'm aiming for at least 160 miles in June (i.e. 40 a week). Let's see if this works :)