Marathon Training & Tapering

Okay...I have already ran my marathon but I had a few notes I wanted to get out there before I completely lost them (race report coming soon!). So here they are:

My Actual Marathon Training plan (from week 6 on):
Warning!! This is not a recommend template (as you can see I slacked big time on cross training at the end), but gives you an idea on how I did my trainings. The BIGGEST help for me was having group support (Red Squad!!) in my long runs on those Saturday runs would have NEVER happened.

Overall I ran: (1) 16 miler (3) 18 milers and (1) 20 miler.

Below is a recap of my last LR and taper runs (read from bottom-up):My one and only 20 miler was HARD AS HELL!! I was weary, ended up having IT band issues so my right knee was killing me especially at the end of the run, and I practically shuffled the last 3 miles.
Lessons learned: Eat more!! (on the front end and during), take IB pills during LR, and it truly is mind over matter. I literally cried the last 2 miles...it was my hardest run that broke me down but built me up at the same time.

Immediately thereafter I got my CWX tights (3/4) and went to a sports med doc to get some treatment - so you will see in Week 16 of my training I did absolutely no running, as to not agitate my IT band even more (per docs orders). Thank goodness for tapering!!

Speaking of which - I barely did any running 3 weeks prior to the marathon. That was not my intent but just how it happened. The weekend before the marathon we had a 10miler scheduled but I went to Walt Disney World (WDW) and did plenty of walking there so I sat out on the taper run. I also took in LOTS of water, I going to the bathroom ever 15 minutes (gish) and ate LOTS of carbs (didn't eat as clean as I had "planned" oh well).

Overall my last 3 training months looked like this:

Sept - 97.4
Oct - 127.0 (my highest mileage - was THICK into long runs)
Nov - 83.6
Dec - 4.0 (yeah...we already discussed this LOL)

Doubt I will ever see 127 mileage in a month anytime soon....well unless I am training for another marathon (ain't in the cards no time soon....at all!)

So as I ended my marathon training it was on this note: Happy to stop spending money on so many gels, KT tape and running gear LOL And excited about not having to wake-up at 4:00AM on Saturday mornings, having the energy & desire to knit again and start back-up my swimming lessons!

Though I will say this has been the hardest experience of my life and the quote summed up best for me my last 4 intense months of training:

"The journey is the reward" ~ Chinese Proverb

And I happily kissed marathon training good-bye!! :)