Fit Fun Mom

Week 12 of marathon training is in the bag and THERE IS ONE MONTH LEFT UNTIL THE RACE! Pardon my shouting while I have a minor freakout here. It’s getting real! I got the email from the Mountains 2 Beach race directors the other day with the race packet attached. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten a race packet so early — I’m impressed!

Training is going well, if by “well” you mean: doing all the workouts without missing a single one, and putting all the miles in (but not always at the prescribed training pace). Today’s 15-miler was tough, probably due to the fact that I had spinach salad and scrambled eggs for dinner last night because that’s what I had on hand. Carb-loading FAIL.

I’ve reached a point in this training round where I’m not exactly running for the joy of it anymore. I’m hunkering down and putting the time in and hoping it all pays off. I’m cutting myself a break for feeling this way — you know you’re in the thick of serious training when your mid-week tempo run (not your Long Slow Distance run) is 10 miles plus warmup and cooldown.

Thankfully several sights have cheered my way on recent runs. I tried out a new bike path in Diamond Bar, California the other day, and got a giggle thinking about whoever designed the path:

Diamonds for Diamond Bar!

The city of Diamond Bar was named for the “diamond over a bar” symbol on the branding iron used by a local rancher. I passed a dog grooming shop with this clever name:

Around mile 8 of 15 today, the river rocks spoke to me from the dry Santa Ana River bed:

And this was one of the last sights I saw as I finished up my run, tired but grateful:

Boston Strong

How is your training going? Have you seen anything interesting on a recent run?