Marathon training while crunching through fall leaves — even though this season’s program hasn’t gone exactly as planned, I can’t complain!

As you can see, the Hanson’s program doesn’t do a heavy taper in the final two weeks before the race (49 miles?!), which is good because I’m also slowly adding mileage to get my body acclimated for a few hours of activity at once.

Here’s the original schedule:

And here’s my adapted version:

• Monday: Revocycle class, strength training, PT exercises
• Tuesday: Run outside (10 run/1 walk x 6 = 66 mins)
• Wednesday: Elliptical (45 mins), PT exercises
• Thursday: Run outside (20 run/1 walk x 3 = 63 mins), PT exercises
• Friday: OFF, PT exercises, stretching & foam rolling
• Saturday: Run outside (25 run/1 walk x 3 = 78 mins), PT exercises
• Sunday: Elliptical (60 mins), strength training, PT exercises

I’ve got some new scenery this week, too, because I’m home in Michigan, visiting family and working remotely while I’m squeezing in my final workouts before race day. There’s still a whole lot of green in this picture, but the leaves are starting to change, so it’s a great time of year to be here.

And my workouts are going pretty well! The upside is that I haven’t lost a lot of speed and I have been able to maintain some good endurance with my cross training.

But the downside, as I’m finding out, is that I must be compensating ever so slightly on my left side to favor my right. I’m feeling a few aches and pains in my left hip, hamstring and knee, so I’ve got to be careful.

It’s also going to be tough to rein myself in on race day. I’m still mulling over my final goals because — as you can see from the pacing below, which was from my recent 20 run/1 walk workout — I could potentially make a run for it because it’s a flatter, more forgiving course than my last one.

But I don’t want to injure myself too badly in the process, so I’m going to see how the next few workouts go before making an official game plan. As much as I want to push myself, it’s not worth another round of rehabbing at the PT, so the toughest battle come race day could actually be the mental one.

In the meantime, though, my coach has me sticking to my PT work, foam rolling some Trigger Point release techniques in order to keep things loose and functioning properly through full ranges of motion. The goal is to work up to a 60-minute run with no walk breaks next week before we bring mileage down toward the big day.

Onward to week 18; thanks for following along!