Well the time is finally here. The week before the marathon aka the marathon jitters and second guessing yourself. I'm running the Shamrock Marathon this weekend and I keep asking myself, Did I do enough in this training cycle? Could I have done one more long run? Maybe more speed work? Last week and this week I am going through taper crazies. I feel like I need to run more, but know I shouldn’t so I have been sticking between 5-8 mile runs. The time has come to just trust in your training like they say right?
I’m sure I am not the only one that feels stressed the week before the marathon. Between looking at the weather forecast non-stop and figuring out what you should wear, to logistics of the race, parking, and how early I need to get there? I even asked my friend to take me and he says, “that is too early!” I do have a friend that lives close to the start so I am going to try to park at her house and walk to the start.
Why is it the week before the marathon your everyday life seems to be busier than normal? Between my classes and an annual St. Patrick’s Day party I feel like the marathon will be here before I know it. My friend hosts this St. Patty’s Day party every year on St. Patrick’s Day so every year it falls on a different day. In years past it was after the marathon so I would celebrate afterwards. This year it falls before the marathon which kind of is a bummer!
For those of you who don’t know the Shamrock Marathon is now a challenge like most races these days. You can run the 8k on Saturday and run the half or full on Sunday. I have two friends that always run the 8k and never have run a half. Well guess what? This year they finally chose to run the half. I do not think necessarily because they wanted to, I think it was more because they didn’t want to run the 8k the following day after the St. Patty’s Day party and that meant running the half marathon if they still wanted to be part of the popular race weekend. They have FOMO too apparently!
I am looking forward to this coming weekend, but more important I think I am looking forward to afterwards so I can relax and not keep up with a training plan and I can just run when I want to and not feel like I have to run x amount of miles. I will be looking forward to getting a new pair of shoes too! This will be my second marathon I have run in these within 4 months. I am so bad at rotating shoes! I need to start.
How do you handle stress the week before a marathon?
Do you have taper crazies?
