My Hood Marathon, 3 Weeks Away.

Today I only ran 16.5 miles. It was one of those runs where it dawned on my of how much work I've been doing, and it left me wondering 'am I doing enough?' Lately I've been purposely overtraining on 95% of all my runs, always tacking on extra miles and that sort of thing. Which is great, except when you really start to 'feel' it in a bad way. Last year on this day I was at the starting line for the Utah Valley marathon just doing a test run. I wanted to get an idea of the incline for the run on the following morning. With the injuries I had dealt with in 2018 I really hadn't done the miles needed to run a BQ. But I tried anyway, even a bit cocky about it. As you probably know the course kicked my ass all the way through the valley. It was humbling, I had not done my fair share of work. 

Three weeks from now I'll have finished the Mt. Hood marathon in Oregon. One thing I can say is I've put in the miles for this one, but instead of being confident, I'm actually scared. Maybe I'm frightened of high expectation clashing with the restrictions of my own abilities. Maybe I'm just putting too much pressure on me. Or maybe my body is just plain exhausted at this point. Right now I'm 103.78 miles ahead of where I was on this day last year, and I have to account that I started the year with a 36 mile deficit by the end January. I only turned in 62 miles compared to 98 in 2018, my flu was awful. 

I know I'll still go out and do my scheduled 7 miles tomorrow and honestly be grateful for it. And I'll take a rest day on Monday and go to band practice, and be grateful for that as well. My goal is to keep on running and start to taper down for the next three weeks, as well as mentally prepare for what I must do in Oregon.