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By Any Means Necessary

As of today, I am 3 weeks away from race day! 3 WEEKS FROM RACE DAY!!!! When I decided to take this challenge on earlier this year I had forgotten how exhausting marathon training can be. I was so excited that I would be running my dream race that I underestimated how time-consuming this part of training can be. We have been pounding our bodies for the last 18 weeks and trust me when I say that they are taking a beating. This training has been the toughest for me physically where years past the mental aspect of training has always been my biggest challenge.

With 3 weeks left, my new motto is "by any means necessary". I am doing just about everything I can to make sure I go into race day the strongest I possibly can. I thought this post would center around all the things I do besides running to get me prepared physically for a run. This week was a good representative because I completed 18 miles yesterday.

As I mentioned, this has been tough physically and I have been nursing a really tight leg/knee for the last few weeks. So what have I been doing? Good question! 

2 weeks ago I started seeing a Sports Medicine Chiropractor where I get treatment a couple times a week. We do stretches and treatments to really get into my leg muscles to keep me loose, muscle stimulation to, well, stimulate my muscles and I have been getting my knee taped with KT tape which basically gives support to muscles and ligaments. Does the KT actually work or is it just mental at this point? I don't know and I don't care.  I have better runs when I have tape on my knee so I will continue to have it taped.


In addition to going to get treatments a couple days a week, I am in a relationship with a foam roller. A foam roller is a fancy term for a self-massage to release muscle tightness or trigger points. The word foam is a bit misleading because when I think of foam, I think of soft and mushy and this is anything but and very painful.



Yesterday was the pinnacle of training as we reached our longest miles in training, 18 miles!!! Because we had so much pavement to cover, it was also our earliest wake-up time. I'm just going to let you look the below picture and take it that I woke up about the same time most people in their 20's were getting home from a Friday night out. Side Note: Sully is not so happy with me when my alarm goes off this early!!

 



After I accepted that I was awake in the middle of night, the 18 miles wasn't too bad. Although I wasn't thrilled with my time, my body felt really good and I am encouraged for the 26.2 I have to do in just a few weeks. Pictures below are from the sunrise on the run this morning. I really do feel blessed to be able to hear the ocean sound and see these great sunrises when I am out there (makes waking up in the middle of the night a bit more tolerable).




After the run, we always end with a yummy breakfast; today was Chick-Fila.  I had planned to take a nice staged picture of my yummy chicken biscuit with some delicious waffle fries but I didn't remember that until after I took a bite. I mean I did run 18 miles and my brain wasn't working. 



After breakfast, I have the last step of this tiring process; Stretch Zone.  Stretch Zone is exactly what it sounds like,  a place to get stretched for 30 minutes. I have found this has really helped with my recovery after long runs. 

So my alarm went off at 2:15 AM and I got back from Strech Zone at 1:50 PM almost 12 hours after I started for the day.  All in all, you can see why this is such an exhausting process but honestly, I feel  lucky that I am able to do it. Only a couple more weeks and I will be able to say that ran the NYC Marathon and all of this would have been worth it!!!!


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