One of my team members on a Rotary International-sponsored Group Study Exchange trip to Buenos Aires, Argentina back in 2005 raved about the books Confessions of a Slacker Wife and Confessions of a Slacker Mom.  I bought them and read them and enjoyed them immensely.  They sound like they should be humorous and they are but in addition, they are very valid approaches to marriage and parenting, the jist being to make do with what you have and not go over the top with trying to be super wife or super mom.

Of course this type of book appeals to me because I am a very practical person who does not have nice towels you don’t use hanging in the guest bathroom.  I even take it a step further where we do not really even have a guest bathroom and the towels, if white are likely stained and if beige are bleached and discolored from the active ingredient in my previous face washing/moisturizing regimen (Proactiv).  Maybe that is two steps further.

I won’t take it personally if you do not want to come to my house any longer.

This post is about 50K training but I cannot seem to get to that topic.

If I were to describe the 50K training regimen Anna, Erin and I have followed, I would probably label it “Confessions of a 50K Slacker” except that just the fact we trained for a 50K probably means we are not slackers so we have an oxymoronic title on our hands.   Seriously though, I believe our training has been as lax as it could possibly be while still adequately preparing us for the race.  Perhaps you could call it the bare minimum.

We got in plenty-o-long-runs but our runs during the week definitely left something to be desired.  My goal was to run three times during the weekdays and I have done most of it during my lunch hour with runs ranging from four to eight miles.  Anna and Erin were about the same with even fewer and shorter runs.  No speed work, no hill repeats, no tempo runs…simply normal, everyday, runs…and many weeks we were lucky if we got those in.

But the crazy thing of it…I feel totally ready for this race.  My body is rested, uninjured, well fed and happy.  And I do not even really feel nervous for it.  In the seven marathons, two half Ironmans and countless other long races I have completed, I don’t ever remember feeling like this before a race.

Our bodies are trained to go long and slow.  On long training runs, I often don’t even feel warmed up until after two hours.  After our last training run, I felt like I could go further and I even have the notion that if we kept increasing our time and distance, we could keep building well past 31 miles…but that would be crazy, right!

While three of the five of my good friends who are training feverishly for spring races are beginning to find themselves hurt weeks and days before the race, the biggest worry Anna, Erin and I are facing is what we are going to wear on race day.

Like the approach to marriage and parenting, the Slacker concept may turn out to be a viable training plan, especially if the goal is to finish and have fun.  Maybe I should write my own book.  I guess we better wait until tomorrow to see how we do before I am so ambitious.

Wish us luck!

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