Half Marathon Training Update: This is it, folks!

Well, crap.

After resolving to make the most of my last real week of training, I totally and utterly failed to do that.  My new running shoes literally made my feet bleed.  (I considered posting photos of my bloody shoe, but decided to spare you all.  Imagine, if you will, a shoe, but with blood.  Like that.  Annoyingly, my actual feet look fine, with teensy little scabs and teensy little blisters on them, but I swear, they hurt like crazy and bled everywhere, and I feel wussy complaining about them, like I deserve to have more gruesome wounds to prove to you all how I suffered.)  I ran 8 miles in the evil shoes over a few days early last week and finally just gave up.  If I laced them tight enough not to abrade my ankle skin off, then they compressed the top of my foot and I got instant shin splints.  If I didn't lace them that tightly, then the bleeding.  Shin splints or bleeding... so many choices.

After I gave up on the shoes (screw you, shoes!) I was planning on giving my feet a day to scab over and then get back in the game in my old, decrepit, mud-covered shoes.  But I got a cold, so I skipped another day to rest up. Then I went to the doctor and got a tetanus shot, which apparently I was overdue for, thinking I could do a short run later that day.  But no.  The cold + tetanus shot = DEAD.

DEAD.  I literally (literally!  Not figuratively!) slept from about 9pm Friday until 4pm Saturday.  Then I was up for a whopping three total hours, with some intermittent napping, before calling it quits and heading back to bed on Saturday night.  Sunday was also a day of much sleeping, but I managed a few short errands with the Husband in between all the napping and movie-watching and soup-eating.  Sheesh.

So... yeah.  I am still recovering from my illness/vaccination, I don't have good shoes, and I haven't had a good long run in weeks.  I ran two miles today at the gym on a slow slow pace to see how recovered I am and to try to "taper" properly for a good race, as though that were still possible.  Basically, this half marathon is looming at the end of my week with a dark malevolence and I am trudging toward it with a sense of bitter resignation.

No matter what, I am doing this thing. So I have to get my head and my feet ready for Sunday and make the best of the situation.  Hopefully we'll have nice weather and I'll have some fun.