Running Form Fitness

One of the biggest bummers about running a fall marathon is that I always seem to miss the peak of fall colors! Between heavy training, tapering, and recovery, the best of fall somehow slips by. 🍁 So even though we knew we’d missed the peak, I was determined to get out and enjoy whatever color was left before the weather changes!

Somehow I convinced Stephan Heilner to join me for a trail hike/run this morning. 😂 The forecast looked amazing yesterday, so imagine our surprise when we found ourselves caught in a thunderstorm, complete with lightning WAY too close for comfort! ⚡️

We were almost halfway through the trail section and weren’t sure what to do. I personally know three people who have been killed by lightning, so it’s not something I take lightly. We decided to wait it out in the sheltered spot we’d found, counting the seconds between lightning and thunder to figure out how close the storm was. Let’s just say we were counting a little too fast for my liking! 😳

Thankfully, the storm passed, and the rest of the hike was absolutely beautiful! There’s something about the rain and overcast skies that makes the fall colors pop even more. We may have missed the peak, but there was still plenty of beauty left to make the morning worth it! 🍂❤️

And apparently we didn’t have to worry about missing ALL the bad weather today! Ha ha!

Anyone else wish fall could last just a little longer?! 🍁

First “long run” back! 🙌🏼

Not gonna lie, coming home this week has been ROUGH! Between catching a cold, some pretty major health issues with my daughter, trying to catch up on life, and the worst jet lag, it’s been a lot!

But getting back into my routine has felt SO good! And this morning’s run with Paige Nelson was exactly what I needed! ❤️

Hoping next week goes a little smoother and, more than anything, that we can finally get some answers for my daughter. There’s truly nothing harder than watching your child suffer and not knowing how to help. 💔

Grateful for good friends, running, and a little bit of normalcy in the middle of the chaos! ❤️

It’s CHICAGO MARATHON race week!! 🎉🏃‍♀️

It’s so hard to rank the World Marathon Majors I’ve run, but Chicago will always be near the top of my list! The energy, the crowds, the beautiful city, and the atmosphere are seriously next level! There’s just something special about running 26.2 miles through the streets of Chicago! 🤩

With race week officially here, I wanted to share some of my favorite Chicago Marathon tips and tricks to help you make the most of this incredible experience!

Whether you’re running Chicago this weekend or dreaming of running it someday, save this post! And share it with anyone you know who is heading to the Windy City for 26.2 miles of magic! 🏙️🏅

The race bib is secured!! 🇩🇪

This year of running has been one of the most challenging of my life. Dealing with a posterior tibial tendon tear has tested my patience in ways I didn’t expect, and then throwing an ulcerative colitis flare into this training block made an already hard build feel almost impossible at times.

There were so many moments when I questioned why I was still doing this and why I kept asking so much of my body.

The honest answer is that after nearly two decades of running, it’s part of who I am. It’s something I love and crave. Marathons are hard, but I genuinely love the journey, the training, the work, and everything it takes just to make it to the start line.

I’m praying everything comes together tomorrow. My UC definitely hasn’t loved traveling, and my tendon is pretty sore from all the walking, but honestly, getting to this start line already feels like a miracle.

There were times I truly didn’t know if I would make it here. But here I am.

So if you’re the praying type, please send a few prayers my way that my body cooperates and is able to do what it has trained so hard to do.

Despite everything, I am SO excited to run through this beautiful city tomorrow!

Berlin, let’s do this. ❤️

Taper run through Paris!! 🇫🇷✨

I absolutely LOVE this city. It’s chaotic, beautiful, and somehow there’s something incredible around every corner. I honestly wish I wasn’t tapering so I could just keep running and exploring all day!

The only bummer is Notre-Dame is closed because the Pope is coming tomorrow, so this is as close as we’re going to get. 😂

Feeling so incredibly blessed to be here. Now it’s time to explore as much of Paris as we can without adding too many miles to these taper legs! 🤍

Last “long run” before the marathon!! And after 22 miles last week, this one felt VERY short 😂

It was actually such a lovely, easy run with a few marathon effort miles mixed in because apparently my pre-marathon anxiety needed a little reassurance. 😅 I forgot to get a picture with Tara afterward because it was absolutely POURING rain by the time we finished!

And then this morning I found out I didn’t get into the Tokyo Marathon through the general lottery. 😭 That makes TWO Tokyo lottery rejections this year since I also didn’t get selected for the special lottery for runners with 4+ World Majors.

Sooooo… Berlin just got even more exciting.

My last shot at getting into Tokyo is to gamble on myself and run the qualifying time in Berlin. I KNOW the fitness is there. I’ve done the work. Now I just need my body to cooperate for 26.2 miles.

One week to go. Pray for me!!! 🙏🏻🔥 Berlin, let’s do this!!

And here we are again! 🙏🏻 Second of 3 loading doses.

Praying these infusions start doing their thing before Berlin in a week and a half! I’m SO excited, but if I’m being real, I’m also pretty nervous about how my body is going to hold up for 26.2 miles.

If things don’t improve, it could be a complete 💩 show 😂 But I’ve put in the work, I’m doing everything I can right now, and I have faith that somehow it’s all going to come together.

I feel like that’s the story of life a lot of the time. You do what you can, keep moving forward even when things feel uncertain, have faith, and trust that somehow it will all work out the way it’s supposed to. 🙏🏻

A week and a half. Berlin, here we come! 🇩🇪🏃‍♀️❤️

22!! 🥹 I am SO excited that I made it here.

I pushed this run back from last week because my tendon was so sore, and I’m really glad I listened to my body and waited.

This training cycle has been incredibly humbling. My body has not wanted to cooperate, and if I’m being vulnerable, I’ve felt so discouraged. I want that age-group championship qualifier in Berlin so badly because it would mean getting to run Tokyo next year. I’ve prayed so hard about whether I should keep moving forward, and even when I’ve felt like the answer was yes, I’ve still questioned it.

One thing I’ve learned about God is that He rarely removes the hard thing. More often, He gives us the strength, comfort, people, and little miracles we need to keep going through it. So we can learn and grow! Growth happens in discomfort, unfortunately.

That has been the story of this entire training cycle.

I feel like I’ve been limping my way toward this marathon, just trying to hold everything together. But today’s run was exactly what I needed. It gave me a little piece of my confidence back and reminded me why I’m still going to line up in Berlin and give it everything I have.

And I absolutely could not have done today without Bree Thorpe and Paige Nelson. ❤️ Bree met me for the first 7 miles so I didn’t have to run alone in the dark at 4:30 a.m., (not pictured, it was dark) and Paige changed her workout so she could pace me through 8 of my 10 marathon-pace miles. I don’t think they even realize how much that meant to me.

Was it perfect? Nope. Two potty stops 😅 BUT none during the tempo, which honestly feels like a miracle at this point. My tendon is definitely sore, but it was completely bearable.

I cried on the drive home. Just pure gratitude.

Gratitude that even though this build has been far from ideal, even though life has felt really heavy, and even though I’ve questioned over and over whether my body would let me get here… today, things came together.

Now we taper. We pray. And in Berlin, we go for it. 🇩🇪💗

It might be a Hail Mary, but sometimes those are the ones worth taking.

Pray that this tendon holds up. 🙏🏼

I can’t believe the Berlin Marathon is only TWO weeks away! 🇩🇪🏃‍♀️

Trying to eke out as much fitness as I can in this last week of the build. This has definitely been one of the hardest marathon builds I’ve done, but I’m still showing up, still putting in the work, and at this point, that’s what counts.

Today was a doozy 😅

2 mile warm up
3 miles progressing from 6:40 → 6:20
1 mile float @ 7:20
2 miles progressing from 6:15 → 6:07
1 mile float @ 7:20-7:30
1 mile @ 6:00
3 minute recovery
4 x 2 minutes @ 6:00 → 5:52
Recovered until 13.1

Definitely one of those workouts where I was very happy to be DONE 😂 But another one in the bank, and we are getting so close.

Two weeks to Berlin. Now we just have to get there healthy. 🤞🏼🇩🇪