Weekly Training Update - 1 Week To Go

Here's the week 16 training update:

Week 16 target mileage: 27 miles
Week 16 actual mileage: 24.2 miles

Target cumulative miles through last week: 612 miles
Actual cumulative miles through last week: 586.1 miles
Variance: (25.94) miles

Training miles to go: 14*

At this point I've got just 5 days to go until the race; it's hard to believe that it's so close after more than 9 months of thinking about it, planning for it, and training for it.

Last week's training - the second week of a three week taper - was ok. I didn't feel particularly relaxed or refreshed from the reduced mileage, and while my knees and ankles feel great, the soreness in my groin/thigh got worse. I've talked with a number of people about what to do and the one point on which there is great consensus is that I should not run any further this week. I have to give a particular shout out to Tom at Runner's Lounge, which is a terrific running community on the web. Tom is one of the co-founders of the site (as well as an experienced marathoner) and generously offered to talk with me after I emailed him yesterday. We spent more than half an hour on the phone together and he had some great suggestions. I was also glad to hear that Chicago is his favorite of all the marathons he's run.

So....while the injury has me a bit concerned, I'll take it easy this week and hope that rest, ibuprofen, etc. have me ready to go on Sunday.