Week 24 Recap

Sam: In the name of drama and intrigue comes Week 24. Tomorrow morning at 7 am, we'll be exactly two weeks away from the marathon and three hours away from Mountain Goat. I wish I could say I'm ready to burn rubber on the Goat course tomorrow, but this week was outright horrible for me running-wise. The most obvious culprit is the lingering right hamstring. There have been flare-ups of tendonitis that are mostly dealt with by a good warm-up, but these rage back a few hours after each run and stick with me throughout the better part of the day. I took the mileage way down and added an additional day off this week to hopefully help matters. Work has also been inordinately busy lately, as I'm juggling three projects at once resulting in a lot of early mornings and late arrivals back home. This week was also truncated by a trip to Delaware to help with the Triple Crown. My role involved marking trail for two and a half hours yesterday and finish line duties today--both of these meaning a lot of time on my feet. Finally, there's the driving to consider: Syracuse to Emmaus to Newark to Philly (great game with Chickie's and Pete's Crabfries thrown in for good measure) to Newark to Syracuse. S(18, super slow), M(off), T(3), W(off), R(6, strides), F(6), S(6). Total 39 miles.

RO$$: S(9), M(7), T(8), W(0), R(10), F(9), S(9). 52 miles total. Unsurprisingly, I felt pretty tired after last week's high total, so I felt no reason to push things and just wanted to recover somewhat. I thought it would be another seven day week, but the Penguins decided to blow their 3-1 lead to the Lightning, so I attended Wednesday's game seven loss. It was probably for the best. The day of rest was much needed, and no one wanted to see the Pens lose to the Caps in round two. I had hoped to do a final long run this weekend, but it didn't happen. The lack of real quality long runs has been a disappointment for me, but I've run more overall than I expected to. We'll see how things play out. This week should be fairly big before the long-awaited taper.

I'm very concerned about Sam's hamstring. Best of luck, friend. Truly, there is no shortage of suspense in the world of MaT: Will Sam make it to the start line and enjoy the much deserved fruits of his hard work by throttling Gordon and RO$$? Does Gordon really exist, or did Sam and RO$$ just make him up? And will RO$$ actually clean his house and spare his guests the indignity of sleeping in a dirty shithole? Stay tuned!

Gordon: (S) 10 M(10) T(10) W(3) (R) 9 F(4) S(20) 66 mile week - I have been pretty low in confidence since my mileage has been less than ideal. This week worked well for me considering I have had a lot to do outside of running and work. I plan on keeping the mileage the same for this week before the crash of mileage for the taper.

I honestly have no idea what the race will feel like. The 20 miler was meant to be a tune-up to feel the pace. At the 15 mile mark I ran into Prospect Park where there are a number of mile markers. I hit 6:20 pace for 3 miles there, but I felt tired. This was also on the Sunniets Day of the Year, and I got a pretty bad sunburn and I was running at 1:00 pm, which may have contributed to the sense of fatigue, but it was disconcerting, nonetheless.

In other news, the wedding weekend has been almost completely finalized, and I've only got a few more details to hammer out (I'm sure the last month will be hectic), but it has felt good to get a lot of these decisions finished with.