For the rest of the week, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, I didn't run. I did manage 70 minutes on the bike on Saturday to replace what should have been an 8-mile run, but aside from that, I've just been icing every chance I get.

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I also broke out my "Stretch-Out Strap" that I have from my last IT band injury and have been using that thing religiously. With six days left until the marathon, this will likely be my strategy until the morning of the race.

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IT Band Syndrome is a fickle bastard and I don't expect it to be fixed by Sunday morning. Basically, my goal at this point is to focus on mitigating as much discomfort as I can so that I don't do too much damage on race day. I'm anticipating pain during the marathon, the real question is how much.

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I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried but I'm definitely not going to let this get in the way of what I've spent the last 17 weeks training for. I'm going to cross that finish line next Sunday and I can't wait to finish my first marathon. We'll see how this last week of training goes but I'm confident that I'll get myself in shape for a strong finish. God willing, the next training update I'll be writing will be a recap of a stellar finish from my first-ever 26.2

Cheers!