Well kids, the most magical weekend of the year in Boston is over and it certainly didn’t disappoint. I had so much fun with friends old and new. Read on for the play by play!

Monday-Friday: Some pretty kick ass training, if I do say so myself. I was really happy to hit this mileage without feeling beaten down or sluggish. The highlight was definitely that little guy over there on Thursday–3 sets of two miles at my half marathon goal pace getting faster with each set!! These workouts absolutely feel hard as heck, but I know they’re going to get me to my goal. So, worth it. Friday I hit up the Boston Marathon expo with Alexa–the expo is a BLAST and I was tempted to buy all of the things. But I didn’t.

Saturday: I met up with one of my running pals, the lovely Megan! She moved to Philly about a year ago after running an incredible Boston last year as her first marathon. Megan is the loveliest person and we just jump right back into it whenever we see each other. We decided to run the BAA 5k, which was sort of insane and frustratingly so crowded we couldn’t do much more than jog the whole time. Pro tip–if you want to RACE this race, get as far up in the corrals as possible! Either way, Megan and I spectated, laughed, and insta-ed our way over the marathon finish line and then of course headed to mow down on some brunch. After we parted ways I wandered over to the Strava popup store to pick up my free socks for completing their marathon week challenge, and got a quick peep of the elite women’s invitational mile around Copley Square. Never a dull moment on marathon weekend! The rest of the day was studying, grocery-ing, and meal prep. #adulting.

Sunday: The weather was supposed to climb into the mid 80s (WHAAAAT) on Sunday, so I got up at an ungodly hour to meet big bro for an 18 mile fast finish long run. We took the shadiest route we know of and sweated it out–it was a little bit of a sufferfest but I was grateful for the company and even more grateful to be training for a spring marathon–last August, we did this every.freaking.weekend. Post-run I was pretty depleted, but made it to a fun Easter brunch in NH with J’s family.

Marathon Monday: Like last year, I signed up to volunteer at the mile 21 water stop with a couple of running pals. If you’ve never volunteered at a distance event, DO IT! It is such an incredible honor to support the runners who have done so much work to get to race day. As I’m sure you’ve all heard/read, it was a tough day weather-wise but I am so proud of all of the amazing finishers for battling it out. Especially Alexa, who gave me the best giant hug of the day. It was also super incredible to see so many of my favorite elites up close and personal (Meb! Galen! Desi! Jordan!)

Week 11: 56.3 miles

• Monday: 7 easy + strides
• Tuesday: 8 mile hilly progression run (last 3 at 7:54, 7:41, 7:19)
• Wednesday: 4.6 slow recovery miles
• Thursday: Tempo! 1 up, 3×2 miles at HMGP (sets at 7:30, 7:27, and 7:19) with 3 min recoveries, 1 down
• Friday: 4.6 easy
• Saturday: Easy BAA 5k with Megan! 3.9 total
• Sunday: 18 mile fast finish long run (last 6 at 8:04, 7:57, 7:57, 7:54, 7:56, 7:28)

Also! One of my grad school pals wrote a post about part-time MBA students with full time jobs who run marathons. Check out my ramblings here.

Linking up with The Weekly Wrap (hosted by Hoho Runs and Miss Sippipiddlin) and with Eat Pray Run DC for her training recap linkup. Also, joining the Jess’s (Jess Runs ATL and The Right Fits)–congrats on a strong Boston, Jess!!!