Phew. I survived week eight of Cleveland marathon training! Wow. This week called for a half marathon on Saturday, and also a trip to Atlantic City! But I’m getting ahead of myself …

Anyway, this week called for Tuesday: 3. Wednesday: 6. Thursday: 3. Saturday: 13.1, for a total of 25.1 miles. I stuck to the mileage this week pretty religiously.

Monday: rest!– Hadn’t planned on running, and I decided to sleep in (until 7:20 a.m.!) and then spend the afternoon relaxing. After work B and I went to Second Sole to pick up some more Gu packs and some orthotics/inserts for my shoes. After Saturday’s painful run where my feet, then knee, and then back started hurting. I was willing to try anything. I picked up a pack of Powerstep Pinnacles and was excited to try them out during Tuesday’s 3 miler.

Tuesday: 3 – B and I hit the streets after work. My body and breathing felt good but OMG my feet. The right insert felt strange, but not painful — but the left one? OUCH. It was not fun. I could barely keep up with B and couldn’t wait to get home to take them off. I know it would take me a while to get used to them – but is it supposed to be painful in the meantime?

Painful Powerstep Pinnacles... hopefully they get better!

Wednesday: 6.14 – Post-work, B and I tried out a new route through the Flats. We set out around sunset and it was still 55 degrees! I ran without the Powerstep inserts and my legs/feet felt fine. Best part? Post-run, B made lamb chops for dinner!

Thursday: 3 –  Put back in the inserts and headed to the gym for a post-work dreadmill run. Again, thank goodness for the FUN CD – What a boring run it would’ve been otherwise! My shoes were hurting again, but maybe it’s just something I’ll have to get used to.

Saturday: 13.25– Scheduled to run a half marathon – 13.1 mi – for training and of course we were due to be out of town this weekend, celebrating Petefest 2-12 in Atlantic City NJ. Thank goodness B and his sister (also training) were on the trip and B mapped out a very flat beach-view route when we arrived — two 5ish mile loops followed by one 3 mile loop. The first 5 miles went well, we started off on the boardwalk and then ran around the condos and houses in the town we were staying in, just outside of AC. BUT, then we somehow made a wrong turn and finished our 5 mi loop in 47 minutes – meaning we didn’t actually hit 5 miles. Woops! The next 5 mile route we found our right turn decided to run an extra 4-5 minutes, just to be sure we hit our 13.1 mi goal. We took a break at tenish miles, refueled, and then finished with the most painful/boring/windy 3 miles ever. The new loop included a nearly mile long street, which was into the wind the entire time, and not fun after running 11 miles. BUT we finished strong and were SO happy to have run the 13.1 miles – and were ready to go out and celebrate!

The half-marathon route! (which ended up being 13.27 after our wrong turn)

Weekly Total: 25. Woohoo! Despite the pain of the Powersteps, it was a great week that included good food, a good weekend trip and not too many bad runs.  More to come on the Atlantic City trip!