Count Down to LA Marathon

I've got one more week til I get to check off another goal. The LA Marathon coming up on Sunday, 3/4 is meant to toughen me up mentally. I must admit, I'm definitely ready to wind things down (only for a little while because I have Solvang 1/2 Century and, ultimately, Ironman). I don't plan to "race" Sunday but actually run with my 9:30-10 minute group. It's all about training for me!

Here is what I had this week leading up to LA:
Mon: 4 miles easy & Yoga class
Tues: 3 miles on the treadmill, a short core workout and then Torture Clinic**
**We did our BIGGEST ride-a 30 minute climb! Man, was that tough!! All that work should pay off at Solvang.
Wed: Off
Thurs: Core Class (Carl killed us again: 200 yard run, 5 push ups, 10 situps, and 15 lunges... as many as we circuits we could do in 20min. I had 11 circuits). Torture testing-this went bad. Not only did I gain weight, but my heartrate didn't change much due to the caffine I'd had that day. The coach was literally disappointed in me... and mentioned it several times. Sucked!
Fri: I took this off... resting up and carbo loaded with runners.
Sat: off
Sun: LA MARATHON!! This race was ok. I was disappointed in the narrow streets at the beginning, especially with 25,000+ runners. That made it hard to hold our pace (10/mile). I wanted simply to stick with the 10/mile runners since this was just a training run for me. We stuck together until mile 10-11, then lost 3 people to the bathrooms. Jim and I trekked along and then lost each other at mile 19. At mile 22 a nasty hill... it's the downhill that KILLED me. From there out, I need to dig deep mentally... this is EXACTLY what I set out to achieve this race. I pulled through despite the heat (80 degrees) and pain. I finished with the slowest time EVER: 4:38:21.

Now onto Solvang 1/2 century this weekend....