One Week Until the Dublin Marathon

Hello! I’m here with my weekly recap of training for my 43rd marathon, the Dublin marathon on October 29th.

If you missed it, I shared a recap of my recent visit to Marrakesh- catch up here!

Okay, I’ll get on to the recap!

Monday: Rest from running. After returning from Marrakesh the day before, I was happy to get some extra sleep. Dog walks, core + lower body strength after work.

Tuesday: Tempo Tuesday! 4×7 minutes moderate with 2 min jog in between, 8 miles total.

Wednesday: 7 miles before work with a stop at “It’s Bagels” on Regent’s Park road; there are very few bagel places in London, so when a good one opens, its wildly popular, and usually this place has a very long line, but I ran by right when it opened at 7 am, so I was the first one there! I picked up a bagel for Dustin and one for me for an anniversary treat.

Wednesday marked 15 years together! Time flies.

While I waited for my order, this older British woman approached me and first complimented my legs, saying I looked “proper fit” but then went on about how my upper body was “too much” and if I wasn’t careful, I wasn’t going to fit in shirts anymore, that I should dial back the strength training…ummm…okay? Why would she feel that it was necessary to tell me her thoughts on my body? I was caught off guard and didn’t say much back to her, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t bug me…I jogged home with my bagels, thinking of all the comebacks I wish I would have said. I hate that I let it bother me when I am generally content with my body but no one is 100% secure where that sort of thing wouldn’t catch them off guard.

Anyways….the rest of the day was fine, I worked from home as I had a dentist appointment. I’m still so happy with my dentist/hygienist here; they are SO thorough and I feel like I get an incredible cleaning here. I know the old stereotype is that British people don’t have good teeth (here I am upset about a comment about my upper body and then I am repeating bad stereotypes…) BUT I think my dental care here is better here than in the U.S.!

Thursday: Morning miles with my friend Susan from the Mornington Chasers. She splits her time between London and Florida, and is heading back to Florida for a few months, so it was our last run together for awhile. Of course, it was a very London morning, rainy the whole way!

This is another art installation in Regent’s Park that we ran past:

Friday: Through work, we had vouchers for free classes at Soul Cycle, so two of my coworkers asked if I wanted to join them for a Friday morning class. I know you’re not supposed to do new workouts during the taper, but I knew I could dial it back during the class and I wanted to be part of the fun. So I jogged 3.8 miles from home to the studio in SoHo, took the class, and then tubed home afterwards to work from home. Nothing against Soul Cycle, but its not my workout of choice, but it was still fun to do with friends.

Saturday: Last long run before Dublin- just 10.3 miles. It was pouring essentially the whole run. I was drenched, but hey, it was only 10 miles.

After the run, Dustin and I went to Southwark Cathedral for the Museum of the Moon– this artwork has been making the rounds around the world, so I thought it would be neat to see. Crowded, but still cool.

Last that evening, we had a little spa day booked at Aire Ancient Baths for our 15 year anniversary. Aire has locations around the world (Chicago, NYC, Copenhagen, and more!)

We booked the pools + a couples’ massage. It was neat! Though I wouldn’t recommend going on a Saturday, as they were too busy and overbooked. Our experience was meant to be 90 minutes and we were there 3 hours…which is probably fine, but we had hoped to grab dinner afterwards and needed to get home to the pups, so we were in a rush.

Sunday: 4.5 mile trail run in the Heath with Ruth and Dustin, before Dustin headed to Heathrow for another work trip. I’m not tagging along this time though, since we have Dublin next weekend.

We were treated to sunshine finally after so much rain!

I followed the run with some core and upper body. I won’t do much for strength the rest of this week other than core, stretching, and maybe some light weights.

Summary: 42 miles of running, 2 days of strength, 1 spin class

I’m linking up with Running on the Fly and Confessions of a Mother Runner; check out their blogs to connect with other fitness bloggers for workout ideas and inspiration!