T-minus 14 days. This is it bloggy friend. Only 2 weeks until my big race. I am so ready for it to be over. I really let life get in the way these past 3 weeks and my pitiful long run yesterday really hammered that fact home. My husband got pneumonia and was hospitalized for a few days 3 weeks ago so for that week I was a single mom and could only get in a few runs with the kid between working and going to the hospital. Then that weekend I couldn’t leave him with Harper b/c he was feeling so weak and not sleeping well, plus she got really sick with a double ear infection. So, I chose to call that week a rest week and just ran two 6 milers that weekend, instead of the 16 I was supposed to. The next week I got hit with an awful sinus infection and slept through most of my weekly runs, then when the weekend came and I had my last 20 miler looming over me, I bagged it at 11 miles. I just felt awful and knew that if I pushed it I would be worse off the next week and decided to push the run to this past weekend and shorten my taper. Fast forward to this past week and pure laziness just set in. I allowed myself to get off track for 2 weeks and then getting up at 5am became too hard. I had two short runs mid week and was going to do 20 miles on Sat. I was all set, but then our grandma babysitter got sick and couldn’t watch Harper and we were getting windows installed in our house, so Gary was too busy to watch Harper that day. So, I had an awesome 7 miler with the stroller and pushed the 20 miler to Sunday. Gary slept awful Saturday night and I felt bad getting him up early so I let him sleep and decided to do the run whenever Harper went down for her nap. I headed out later than normal, which meant my nutrition was off as I hadn’t eaten lunch, plus it was unseasonable hot. I was a salty mess by mile 10. My plan was to run the 20 around my neighborhood to cut out the normal 40 min round trip commute I have for my long runs at the park. I took my dog out for 2 and took him home b/c it was so hot. Then a friend joined me for the next 4. After that I was alone. Thank goodness for an ipod. Only 6 miles in and I already felt off. My legs were just hurting. I was sweating profusely, I kept getting kind of lightheaded. I decided to make it into an adventure and ran to a completely new area and explored a little retail area I never really visit (Larchmere Blvd) and over to Shaker Square to refill my camelback, then I ran around the Fairmount Mansions streets. I kept to streets I never run on to keep it interesting. But the entire time self doubt was creeping in and my legs just really hurt. Normally I don’t have any pain when I run but my calves were screaming and my hamstrings were tight. After 15 I really start to walk here and there and by 16 I thought I should just go home and call it a day. I figured at that point I was doing more harm than good. For whatever reason I had to do 2 more and made it 18. I doubt that I walked more than 1 mile. And my pace when I was running was faster than I wanted it to be. I kept telling myself to slow down to a 10 min/mile as that is what I like my long runs to be at, but I was well below 10 min pace the whole time. I think I was hurting b/c I was going a bit too fast, I was dehydrated and I didn’t eat enough beforehand. Aside from the weather being gorgeous, the run sucked. If my marathon goes like this I am in huge trouble. But I do think that I am going to be well below my last marathon time of 4:29, gawd I hope so.

In other news. I weighed in at 130.7 this morning. Hopefully that isn’t b/c I am dehydrated and will still be there. I am really trying to be mindful and watch my nutrition and eat as cleanly as I can so that I feel good race morning. I am so scared of the Halloween candy. I hope I can prevent myself from jumping headfirst into chocolate and derailing my other good choices. Harper and I are heading to KY this weekend to see my family. Hopefully I can keep myself from spiraling out of food control. Wish me luck.