I remember now the reason why I never ran short races during marathon training .. I forgot that my legs just can’t take the fast speeds of smaller races when i’m training for an endurance run like a marathon. I really burned my legs out by pushing my pace on Sunday (even at 3/4 speed) and so far have felt the effects of it all week long in my training. I’m dealing with a real sore right hamstring and groin since Sunday, which has caused me to change around my training schedule to skip my Thursday speed workout in exchange for a recovery run. As for right now, i’m trying to heal it up for my 22 miler tomorrow and am hopeful my run will be OK as I prepare for the taper before the Flying Pig marathon.

The thing that gets me is how the weekends always seem to have worse weather than during the week .. yet another cool and rainy weekend is coming up, which will challenge my senses yet again. Last Saturday was cold with that wind, this Saturday is expected to be overall cool and rainy (hopefully with just light winds) .. Sunday is expected to be even cooler, then of course it clears up for during the week once again, i’m just not sure why that always happens.

I did take some time to map out and to start to study the marathon course for May 2nd, seems like the course is split between the center of city and the outskirts .. we cross over a few bridges and then we go through some parks, it seems nice. It looks as if the worst hills are towards the beginning, in the first 4-5 miles, which as long as I run them properly, should not be an issue. I like getting the daily emails from the marathon folks with tips about certain aspects of the race … it kind of hypes it up for me (not to mention that they are helpful).

So i’m craving my taper right now as my body is sore as can be .. just a few days left until I start to seriously cut back the miles …