#Sub5orBust: Week 12 Training Update (January 6 - January 12, 2020)

Monday, 1/6 → Rest

Tuesday, 1/7 → Rest

Wednesday, 1/8 → 4 mile run (treadmill) + phase 3 lift

Thursday, 1/9 → 5 mile run (treadmill) + stretch

Friday, 1/10 → Rest + therapy gun on my legs

Saturday, 1/11 → 20 mile run + stretch
Sunday, 1/12 → Rest

Peak week is over and it's now time to taper! I will admit that my second 5 mile run and second phase 3 lift that was scheduled for the week did not happen. Not really sure what the deal was with that, but we're back on the horse with the first week of tapering. Tapering has historically been me just.... not running. 😂 So this time around I want to focus on:

-Continuing to hit my scheduled work outs

-Eating well and keeping junk to a minimum where I can

-Stretching and foam rolling
-Getting my mental game right; THE POWER OF POSITIVITY, Y'ALL

-Hydrating until the cows come home

I want to have a good taper this time around. It's the last four weeks of preparation before the big day and every moment counts. I can't slip back into bad habits when I'm so close. I want that sub-5!

With week 12 being peak week, I had my 20 mile run over the weekend! The forecast called for beautiful a 60-degree and sunny day on Saturday and 60-but-rainy on Sunday. The weather changed and BOTH days ended up being beautiful, but I had already planned to run on Saturday so I got the weekend off to a productive start. Again, I had a really great long run which I'm so happy about! I stuck to the fueling and hydration plan I used for my 18 miler and it still worked so well. My legs were feeling pretty tired a bit sooner on in the run, and that could be because I had done my 18 miler just 6 days before, but I still managed to stay well under the 11:26/mi target pace. I can't tell you what a confidence booster that is heading into the taper!

My splits look a bit wonky in the first few miles. I accidentally bumped the lap button on my Garmin when I stopped shortly after mile 1 to fix the hose on my Camelbak (it had a nice kink in the hose so I couldn't drink anything 😂). I didn't realize I did this until the mile 2 split didn't beep and I had to manually hit the lap button to get back on track at mile 3. RUNNER PROBS! Either way I'm still quite happy with my splits. I really tried hard to push in those later miles when I got down to that 11:26/mi split on mile 17 & 18, and it helped me feel confident enough to go a bit faster for mile 19 & 20. It always feels so good completing that last long run before the taper, and I'm really proud of Saturday's run.

So now it's the taper - arguably the trickiest part of the training cycle. The name of the game is to rest your body as much as possible while still staying active, getting stretched, eating enough but eating well, sleeping sleeping sleeping, and getting your mental focus in place. At this point I've put in the hard work and now I need it to settle into my legs (and mind!) before race day. It's a lot to manage but I'm looking forward to actually doing the things I need to do during this taper instead of turning into a coach potato for 4 weeks before my race which I've definitely done in the past. 😂 WE'RE SO CLOSE, YOU GUYS!!!