Nashville Marathon Training Weeks 10-12

Recapping weeks 10-13 of Nashville Marathon training, including a quick 2 miles with my nieces.

Week 10

Week 10 was the last week of our alcohol detox and the week of our 8th anniversary! My midweek run was suppose to be 7, but I had to do it on the treadmill and only made it slightly more than 5 miles. (Treadmill said 5.25, Apple watch said 5.11.)

We celebrated our anniversary on Friday, with a steak meal at The Precinct. (So good!) The following day I thought I had 16 miles, so I set off on a route that I thought would be close to that. I ran along Observatory Ave past the impressive house above. They were working on it, but how awesome are all those doors? At about mile 10 I felt dehydrated. I started taking swigs of water every half a mile. Then I had to run/walk the last few miles. I wasn’t too hard on myself because 1) it was the most miles I’ve ever run, 2) it was the longest I’ve ever run, and 3) I admittedly didn’t have the best night-before meal.  You can image how much more happy I was after realizing it was suppose to be 15, not 16 after all. 🙂

Week 11

Week 11 was interrupted by a work trip back to Minnesota. I ran a fast 4 on Monday and 8 on Tuesday, which was the perfect running day! It was sunny, low 50s, and only a little wind. I started by doing 3 hill repeats on a hill that is about 0.35 miles long. I’ve done the hill on many other runs, but this was the first time of doing it repeatedly. I actually liked it! I did not like the two new blisters I had on my big toes-between the toes. 🙁

On Thursday I snuck in 2.4 miles with my twin nieces around their neighborhood. They were troopers in the 30-degree weather. We could have continued but my aforementioned blisters started to really hurt.

Minneapolis Lakes Run

Worried about my blisters, I went to TC Running and bought this blister kit and these toe socks. I ended up using a blister bandaid and then tapped the entire toe in medical tape. This worked in the sense that I was able to run my 16 miles without pain, but none in the sense of healing the blisters. Luckily, the route around the lakes in South Minneapolis are very flat.

I planned to do ~10 and then meet up with Heidi for the last 6 miles. She is training for Goldy’s 10-mile run in April. She said she’d have water, so I planned my route to loop back to my car once for water/gel.

I’ve run these lakes several times, but not since moving to Cincinnati so it was fun to be back! Recall that before we moved, we wanted to move to Linden Hills. I just love the entire area! I tried to keep a slow pace by listening to Hidden Figures audiobook until meeting up with Heidi.

We ended up meeting at roughly 9 miles and did Lake Harriet and then back around Bde Maka Ska to Heidi’s car. I was grateful to have her along for the last few miles. I was feeling spent and she helped me push through to the end. (We look pretty darn good after 16 and 7 miles!)

Week 12

I decided to take Sunday and Monday off running- not because I was tired but to allow my blisters two full days to get better. With friends coming to town for the weekend and operation-blister-healing, I opted to run twice in the week and a longer run on Friday.

For all three runs I tapped my big ‘ol toes up and didn’t feel much while running. I ran 8.1 outside on Tuesday. There were flurries on Wednesday so I did 4.1 miles on the treadmill. On Friday morning I did 11.5 and the blisters were massive when I untapped them. I’m currently debating whether or not I should do something to them or let them heal (or at least get better) on their own. Of all things I thought I would struggle with during marathon training, blisters were not one of them.

• Nashville Marathon Training
• Nashville Marathon Training Weeks 1-3
• Nashville Marathon Training Weeks 4-6
  
• Nashville Marathon Training Weeks 7-9