Marathon Training Week Sixteen

This week was an easy week...only 12 miles. That makes me laugh to type that because I never thought I'd say that 12 miles was a light weekend run, but compared to the 18 miler we have coming up next weekend, 12 definitely seems like a walk in the park.

Landon and I both were on pace this week for the whole 12 miles, which was fun. All of his miles were around a 9:10 mile and all of mine were under 11 minute miles--ranging from 10:30 to right under 11 minutes, which is good for me since my marathon goal pace is 10:53. I finished about 2 miles behind Landon and he was so sweet to again cheer me on as I finished and even run my last 1/4 mile or so with me, to push me. I love him so much. And I love that this marathon thing is something that we are doing together, because I honestly don't know if I could do it without him. He pushes me and encourages me and makes me feel like I don't suck, when I'm going way slower than him.

This week Landon finished the 12 miles in 1 hour and 51 minutes and I finished in 2 hours and 7 minutes, which is cool because our half marathon time from last year was 2:35, so for both of us our pace was quite a bit better today. I was on track to run about a 2:18 half marathon and Landon to run a 2 hour half marathon. Improvement is always fun. :)

We made our weekly stop at Smoothie King on the way home and thoroughly enjoyed the thought that our long run for the week was done, we were actually feeling ok and we didn't have anything to do until 9:30 that night, when we went to meet some friends from church at this guitar bar in our neighborhood to hear one of his friends' band play. We spent our afternoon sleeping and lounging around the house, watching movies and editing pictures and basically doing nothing. Those kind of Saturdays for us are few and far between and it was beautiful. :)

Pray for us next weekend. We're going to be running in DFW because we'll be up there hanging out with friends and going to a wedding and I know I'll need an extra dose of mental strength to run my 18 miles strong and not give in and slow down when it gets hard or when I get tired. After those 18 miles, we have a 14 miler, a 20 miler, 2 taper weeks and then...the marathon!!!