What's Done is Done...I have a Half Marathon to Run Saturday!

I promise I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Last week I was away at church camp with the youth from my church. It was a great week! I loved unplugging from the world, honing in on the spirit, and just enjoying the wonderful outdoor creations God has given us to enjoy. 

This week is it, as far as training for my 3rd half marathon. In other words, what I didn't fit in by now, won't be happening as I'm beginning my taper and will only run a couple miles tomorrow and Wednesday and then rest Thursday and Friday before the big day Saturday. 

Do I feel prepared and ready? Nope. Not at all. It's an interesting feeling really. I stuck to my training schedule for the most part but did manage to miss a few runs here and there. In fact this time around my long run milage bumped up much faster than in the past and I was running 9 mile long runs as well as 10,  2 and 4 weeks ago. I then missed two weeks of long runs with sporadic running during the week. Then it was off to camp and the conditions there were as such that a long run was not feasible. I came home and Saturday I hit 5 miles and it was probably a good thing I stopped when I did. My body was just tired and still trying to recoup from camp. You can imagine what this started to do to my brain though. Questioning if I had it in me to run 13.1 with having missed those runs. Knowing very well I am capable of running 13.1 miles Saturday, I forced myself to venture out on one last long run this morning. It's almost as if I needed to do it to turn the voice off in my head that was feeding me wrong information. Good news is....since about 7:40 this morning, not a negative doubting thought has entered my mind. Wahoo! 

I think part of the reason I feel so differently this time around is that I started out training with a heart rate monitor which had me running at a ridiculously slow pace. Then when things started to speed up as time went on, I found I wasn't enjoying myself and decided I need to be doing this to have fun and enjoy my body not to be miserable along the way. I'm not sure if it's because I trained for weeks having to run slow and keep within the heart rate I needed to be, that when I was able to run faster, I felt like it was beyond my reach (like my body got accustomed to running slower) but it seemed much harder and faster than I'd ever run. In reality though, it wasn't. In fact, both of my other half marathons I trained running faster than I am now. It's weird.

What's done is done. The most important factor for me come Saturday is to have fun. To me, coming from the girl who used to be 278 pounds and never laced up a pair of shoes and hit the pavement until a few short years ago, that is huge! I may not be the fastest one out there, in fact I very well may cross the finish line with my slowest time yet, but I'm hoping to say I enjoyed the journey along the way! 

A little mud football at camp!

Camp treats!

I loved having this little camper with me all week!