10 Days...

October 10th is now in the 10 day forecast... I am not sure if I am more exited or more nervous that that means that I will be running 100 miles in 10 days! Taper madness is in full effect. I have a crazy mix of thoughts and emotions going on right now, but hopefully that is normal, or perhaps it is just my normal! My house has little piles of gear with sticky notes mixed with birthday party piles, and my to do list is still as long as ever. I didn't run yesterday due to the crazy rain, and might be taking tapering a bit too seriously as I failed to get out of bed to run this morning :)

Many of the thoughts focus on what's ahead but I'm also looking back. Wondering, pondering, analyzing...

Have I done "enough"? I have no idea. The truth is that "enough" is different for everyone, and what might be enough for me might not be enough for you. Did I follow my training plan (even the one I revised for myself) to a T? Ha ha! That is funny :) Not even close! But that seems to be my MO and I am cool with it. Training is just a part of my life, and even though TARC has been taking up a lot of head and heart space, not to mention time, it isn't my whole life. So, sometimes/often/always, modifications have been necessary and that isn't always a bad thing.

The reality is that I have never been a huge mileage junkie and this training cycle wasn't any different. I didn't have any weeks higher than low 60s. While a lot for me, that doesn't seem like a lot compared to many training for a 100, so that makes me a little nervous for sure, but I also seem to have come through it all uninjured and feeling strong, so perhaps the "lower" mileage plan I ended up on isn't such a bad thing.

When I look back, I can see many things. I see a few "bigger" runs missed. But I also see consistency and many solid runs. I see that I've needed more rest than your typical training plan calls for. Instead of your typical three big volume weeks followed by a down week, I did a lot of two week blocks before needing some downtime, both mentally and physically. I suppose I could analyze it all to death, but the reality is that it is what it is, and I guess we'll know whether it was "enough" when October 11th at 1:00 pm (ie. the 32 hour cut off time) rolls around!

But in the meantime, for the sake of data (and who doesn't love data?!) and so that I have something to reference in the future, here are the cool training calendar overviews from Strava from the past 5 months. I'm putting it all up here because I want to look and show myself that I ran enough, that I am strong enough, that I can do it on what I have :)