Team World Vision Training - 8 weeks to go

From my hike on the Minnesota River Bottoms Trail

I had to do a double take when I saw there were only eight weeks left until the Twin Cities Marathon. In the past, when there were four to six weeks left until the marathon, I'd start wishing the race were here already.

This year I have a feeling I'm going to be wishing there were more time to train right up until the marathon.

I feel like I've had some great workouts during long runs, but long runs have been the only type of workout I've done besides doing one short hill workout with the Burnsville Summer Running group. I was hoping that would change this past week but, oh, let me tell you about my training last week.

If you were tuned in for last week's training update, you know my ankle started bothering me. So, this week, I decided I would go against what I normally (and ill-advisedly) do when I get an injury. Instead of running on the injury to the point where I can no longer tolerate the pain, I completely stopped running.

I checked every day to see if my ankle hurt, and it finally felt good on Friday, so I did a four mile run. It was a little sore for a couple hours after the run, but it felt fine on Saturday, so I tried a five mile run. After the five mile run it didn't hurt at all, but I decided to still take Sunday off running and did a ninety minute hike instead.

I probably should have gone for a bike ride last week, but the road next to our cul-de-sac is all torn up, and I haven't felt like trying to navigate it or put my bike on the car rack and ride from somewhere else. Instead, I decided on walking and strength training.

This week ended up to be a very easy recovery week. I hope I didn't lose too much fitness, but at the least I didn't gain any weight, so that's a positive.

Fact this week:

133 million people suffer from intestinal helminths (ascariasis, trichuriasis and hookworm infection) caused by unsafe drinking water.

You can help provide live-giving water to communities without basic access to clean water. A donation of $50 brings clean water to one person, but a donation of any amount helps.

Check out my fundraising page: Nathan Leckband - World Vision, or you can donate through my Facebook fundraiser: Nathan’s Fundraiser.