![\"Pig](\"http:\/\/images.clipartpanda.com\/pig-clipart-jixaLGxiE.gif\")
<\/p>\nThe long runs are of course tough when training for a marathon. But in my mind the toughest part of marathon training is trying to manage your time. Sometimes you get lucky; life goes smoothly, you stay healthy, your family stays healthy, the weather stays glorious and you manage to get that all-important training run done and in the books each day. And sometimes pigs fly.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Realistically life does not notice that you are marathon training, nor does it care. Sometimes I think life just laughs at you, snickering, “Now let’s see you fit in that long run!”<\/p>\n
Two weeks ago I knew life was going to prevent me from getting the mileage done. Too many commitments, too little time. Throw in a brutal cold and I knew I had to accept that it would be a cut back week in terms of mileage. \u00a0I’ve read enough to know that the long run is the one not to miss, so feeling crappy and at the end of a long week I did complete 30 km after work on the Friday. \u00a0There is a reason long runs are not scheduled for Friday afternoon\/evenings… that run seemed to last forever.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I kept telling myself that the following week (last week) would get back to normal and I would complete every run. \u00a0The good news is I did what I needed to do and I did a comfortable 32k run at a 6:16 min\/km pace including walk breaks every 4k. \u00a0I felt good at the end and wasn’t particularly sore the next day. \u00a0To top it off, I reached a weekly mileage PB, completing 73 km plus deep water running. \u00a0On paper that looks like a perfect week, but it was in fact more than a little crazy.<\/p>\n
The week started with me still feeling sick, despite having skipped my Sunday orienteering event and quite literally sleeping away the day. \u00a0My youngest was also fighting an ear infection but having been on antibiotics for a couple of days things seemed to be improving. \u00a0On Monday at 6:30 in the morning my husband called to say he had been in a car crash. \u00a0Amazingly, he walked away unhurt but the car was deemed a write-off. \u00a0It made for a chaotic start to the week but we were certainly thankful as it could have been so much worse. \u00a0Still not feeling well, I took my third day off of running in a row and stressed extensively about the missed mileage, but developed a plan to get caught up.<\/p>\n
As the week progressed my running picked up and I felt back on track. \u00a0And then life threw another curve ball in the form of a worsening ear infection for Luke. \u00a0Saturday morning found he and I sitting in the walk-n clinic for the second Saturday morning in a row, assuming he would need another round of antibiotics. \u00a0I was correct, just was in no way expecting that the antibiotics would have to be given through IV. \u00a0Off we went to Ottawa’s amazing children’s hospital, CHEO, and soon found out Luke would need to be admitted. \u00a0Long story short, after 5 days of amazing care Luke was discharged and is doing well.<\/p>\n
Needless to say having a child in the hospital for five days means any kind normal schedule is thrown out the window. \u00a0My husband and I did shifts to make sure one of us was there all of the time and we tried to keep up with work. \u00a0My older son stayed with my parents, easing our scheduling issues considerably. \u00a0I slept in a fold out chair for 4 nights, driving home early in the morning for a shower and heading to work on Monday and Tuesday. \u00a0My husband worked from his laptop during those days and then on Wednesday he made it to the office and I spent the day at CHEO. \u00a0I can’t even begin to describe how tired we both were.<\/p>\n
Through all of this I still had marathon training to complete. \u00a0This week is in fact my peak week and I desperately wanted to avoid getting too far behind. \u00a0What helped was that through all of this Luke was actually feeling great. \u00a0They had him on a steady supply of Tylenol and Advil and quite frankly the good people at CHEO somehow make a hospital seem like the perfect children’s hotel! \u00a0He played pool, watched movies (he doesn’t get to see a lot of T.V. at home so this was quite a treat), read books, played games and just generally had a good time. \u00a0So the guilt factor was removed when I left my husband and Luke at the hospital to go for a run. \u00a0On a very selfish note, however, I am not going to deny that once in a while it would cross my mind that I was spending all of my time in a children’s hospital and an elementary school 4 weeks out from my marathon. \u00a0Seriously, could I be exposed to more germs??? \u00a0In the end, I only bailed on one run when I realized on Tuesday that I was so tired I was essentially the equivalent of drunk. \u00a0I chose to take a nap after work rather than run before the hour drive back to the hospital.<\/p>\n
Hopefully things are back to normal now. \u00a0I have just over three weeks to the marathon. \u00a0I have a long run to do this weekend, my last solo one as next weekend I will use the 9 Run Run Half Marathon \u00a0with some extra thrown in as my distance run. \u00a0Taper time is near and I think for various reasons I am ready. \u00a0Life has done a good job of wearing me down, a bit of a rest will be good. \u00a0That said, we have a lot to be thankful for this weekend.<\/p>\n
Hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!<\/p>\n
![\"Running](\"http:\/\/www.webweaver.nu\/clipart\/img\/turkeys\/run-turkey-time.gif\")
<\/p>\n
Follow me on Twitter @ AverageRunnerK<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The long runs are of course tough when training for a marathon. But in my mind the toughest part of marathon training is trying to manage your time. Sometimes you get lucky; life goes smoothly, you stay healthy, your family stays healthy, the weather stays glorious and you manage to get that all-important training run […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3amQ2-tX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1857"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1866,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}