20 MILES

Saturday was the best and longest training run of my program. Now I will be running less and less till the race on Oct 7. It was a beautiful day and the temp was lower than any of the previous runs, my legs and lungs felt great and Kim and I were pumped 4 hours after we started to be finished with it. I can't explain how great it feels to be done with that run. I really did feel like I could make it another 6.2 when we finished Saturday. Now I am concerned with what I am going to do about all this nervous energy that I will have now that the runs will be shorter for the next 3 weeks. I guess I will have time to read and actually have energy to do other stuff.

I hope to curtail my eating as much as the running, so that I won't have a weight gain over the next 3 weeks. As matter of fact I hopw to lose a little more weight before the race. Now that I will not have to fuel for more than 3-8 miles on most days between now and then I think I will have more confindence that I can get those run in and eat a lot less.

I have been thinking a lot about what my athletic goals will be after the marathon and I am not sure that this is the time in my life to train for an Ironman. As much as I still want to accomplish that goal, the time commitment I have had to make to the marathon has caused me to miss out on family things and rush through other stuff. I think I might need to wait till Robyn gets a little older. I may not sign up for the Ironman for next year, but start lifting weights again after the marathon and stay in shape for 5 and 10ks and think about a half ironman sometime next year. With all the things going on in my life it will be very difficult to make the kind of training comittment that an Ironman would take right now. I think I may re-focus my goals to getting my weight to the 200 pounds mark and working towards running a few 5 and 10ks this fall and winter. I am currently planning on running the Grizzly House 5K again this year with my friend's Von and Melissa, it will be their first race ever and I am excited to be there and experiance it with them, and go back to where I ran my first race 3 years ago, but this time over 150 pounds lighter and with a couple of 1/2 marathons and a marathon under my belt.