Without a plan...

I'm in a weird place in my training right now. My triathlons are done for the season, so I can focus just on my running. I'm looking at my 3rd 20 miler in this training round this upcoming weekend. Two weeks later is the 18 mile race. Two weeks after that is the Marine Corps Marathon.

I decided a while ago that I was going to take the pressure off myself in the marathon this fall. I've been chasing a time goal that, in 3 attempts, I've failed to hit. The timing of all these races isn't ideal, but I'm doing the MCM because I deferred from last year. I really want to run the 18 miler because last year the heat made it a disaster, and I'd like to go back and kick some butt.

So here are my goals: race the 18 miler and try to PR there. If the weather/stars align for a strong run, that the plan. Two weeks later, line up to run the MCM and take the day as it comes. (I never wanted to run the MCM for time -- I wanted to soak it all in, and maybe even stop to shake hands with all the marines if I want to along the way!)

Plan B is: if the day isn't right for a strong run at the 18, treat it like my last LR and go into the MCM feeling ready for a strong 26.2.

With these races coming up, and with these goals, and with my tri training on hold, I'm a woman without a plan. I hate it. I've been sort of following a plan a friend made for me for a previous marathon, and tweaking it along the way with ideas/workouts from other plans I've done or read about. Honestly, I'm not sure I'm trained well right now to PR at any of these races. For the most part, that bothers me. But there's also a part of me that is just kind of seeing where all this leads -- this less-directed training. This is where my current problem lies. I don't know what running/workouts I should be doing between now and October 12th and October 26th.

I'm looking at the other plan(s) and trying to figure it all out. I know my tapers are shorter than most people do/recommend. I'm ok with that, because I've felt, in the past, that 3 weeks was too long. So I'm playing around with mileage and speedwork and hoping, hoping, hoping the races go ok.

If they don't... well... I guess a lot of this is about what you learn along the way.