Thanks, everybody, for the kind congrats.  They mean a lot.  Particularly being compared to Foghat.  Man, I haven’t even thought about Foghat in a decade, at least.

Thanks, too, to Ogged for his ups.  He’s not wrong with that epithet, I’m afraid.  I’m hoping that brainpower will return to something like 70% later today, so that I can post more details.  In the meantime, meg reports on her side of the story.

Before I go collapse, a quick update.  I had three goals set for the marathon (whose name I am able to speak for the first time in two weeks):

– The fairly-likely-to-make-it goal:  just finishing.
– The if-everything-goes-well goal:  finishing in under 5 hours.
– The pie-in-the-sky goal:  finishing in 4.30, which was of course Never Going to Happen.

My chip time, according to the lovely folks at marathon central was 4.32.56.

I rock.

Having rocked, I’m now going to go take a nap.  More on the race particulars, once I’m able to process information again.

There are not many moments in this post-Atkins world in which I can indulge in my most favored comfort food—macaroni and cheese—utterly without guilt.

I am having one of those moments.  And enjoying every blessed bit of it.

And trying very very hard not to think about tomorrow.

Mileage for week: 16 (was meant to be 28)

Number of run days: 2 (was meant to be 4)

Long run for week: 13

Aches, pains, complaints: I’m tired.  Seriously tired.  And overstressed.  And tired.  I made it through my 13 today, though much of it hurt (sore knees, perhaps because I’ve once again been failing to take my vitamins, perhaps because I haven’t gotten to eat a meal at home except on the weekends in eons; very sore arch in my left foot, which may indicate that I need to replace my shoes).  One of the shorter mid-week runs was overcome by an early meeting; the other by my desperate need to sleep past 6.30 the morning after not getting to bed until 1.30.  The time off was, I’m sure, a good thing; I’ve recovered from the 13 today fairly well.  I’m still very nervous about the prospect of running twice as far, of course, and particularly nervous about the fact that I’m now entering the last week of my training schedule that does not have a marathon at the end of it.  Interestingly, though, what I am looking forward to is finding a sensible level of training to maintain the fitness gains I’ve made over the last four months without subjecting myself to the massive ritual punishment of crazy long runs.  Something sustainable.  Which makes me think that, in fact, I may already have accomplished one of my major goals for this whole process:  finish my training without burning out so badly this time around that I quit running for another six months.

If you have one of those weekends where you have a big pile of work to do—say, a couple of books to read and a stack of papers to grade—and intend to do something ridiculous like run 17 miles on Sunday, don’t leave half of the work undone on Saturday.  Because you may find yourself incapable of doing anything other than lying on your bed watching movies after that run.

You know, hypothetically.

Mileage for week: 29

Number of run days: 4

Long run for week: 17

Aches, pains, complaints: I just got back in from that 17, so this is probably not the best taking-stock moment ever—but good gravy, everything hurts.  The 17 was composed of—and probably only those in the Claremont-know will be at all impressed, but nonetheless—3.5 miles from home to the parking lot on Mills at the top of the Thompson Creek Trail, 2.5 miles down the trail, 2.5 miles back up the trail, 2.5 miles down the trail, 2.5 miles back up the trail, and 3.5 miles from the parking lot back home.  So in other words, half the run was dead uphill, and the other half downhill.  I covered the entire distance in 3.20, and that includes 15 minutes of waiting in the parking lot for last week’s running partner (who did not show) and another 5ish minutes of waiting at various lights, stopping for water, etc.  So 17 miles in something like three hours.  I should be all kinds of impressed with myself.

Instead, I’m a bad combination of panicky and delirious.  The delirious part bears no explanation.  Panicky, though, because of the degree to which I Felt Bad during the last five miles of the run, particularly as combined with the knowledge that in three weeks, I’ve got that much to do plus another NINE miles.  Seriously—that’s a minimum of another hour and a half of running, if I’m still able to run at that point.

It’s conceivable that the excitement of the event and having company along the way will help carry me through that last third of the marathon.  But it’s also conceivable that I’m going to be in some serious trouble, particularly given that from mile 15 on, the course is predominantly uphill.  Unless something goes really, really wrong, I’ll finish, but I may finish walking, I’m afraid.

Mileage for week:  17 (was meant to be 11+)

Number of run days:  3

Long run for week:  10 (wasn’t specified; was meant to be a tune-up race)

Aches, pains, complaints:  Ay.  The 14-miler of last Sunday left me a bit more battered than I thought it would; I did three miles on Tuesday, and was seriously sore every step of the way.  To make things worse, I spent the bulk of this week significantly sleep-deprived, so that when I went out to do the 8 miles I meant to run on Friday, I could only manage to drag myself through 4.  My body just hadn’t had enough real rest time to recover from the last long run.  This morning, though, I met a guy from the college’s development office (or Institutional Advancement, as we’re now calling it, euphemizing our euphemisms) for a long run, the first that I’ve actually managed to do outdoors.  (Yes, yes, I know.  There are reasons, though they’re probably not good ones.) And I’ve made a remarkable discovery today:

Hills.

Yikes.  We met at the top of Thompson Creek trail, and ran 2.5 miles down the trail, and then 2.5 miles back up it, stopped briefly at our cars for some water, and then did the 5-mile Claremont Wilderness Park hill loop.  Several of the super-steep uphills were walked, I’ll confess, but less than I thought I’d have to walk.  The entire 10 miles, though, took about 20 minutes longer than I expected, and my ass now feels severely kicked.

But I’m planning on doing it again next week, with several extra miles of street-running tacked on to the front and back end.  We’ll see how it goes.

Wait, hold up.  Week 11?  What happened to weeks 9 and 10?

You don’t want to know.

Um, in fact, yes.  Yes, I do.

*Sigh.* Week 9 started well.  I had four runs scheduled, of 4, 7, 4, and 12 miles.  And the first three were just brilliant.  And then all the mental and physical anguish of my move (and that little impending semester thing) kicked in, and my long run went out the window.

Well, sure.  I can see how that would happen.  But what about week 10?

Week 10 did not take place.  There was zero running during week 10.  There was, however, a comparable quantity of work in the way of carrying large heavy boxes up and down various flights of stairs.

But.  Wait.  I’m looking back at week 8, and you missed your long run that week, too.

Yeah.  Thanks for pointing that out.

So you missed three long runs in a row?

Yes.  Three long runs of 8, 12, and 10 miles respectively.

Good grief.  So how did this week go?

I thought you’d never ask.

Mileage for week:  24 (was meant to be 26)

Number of run days:  3 (was meant to be 3, so HA)

Long run for week:  14 (was meant to be 16)

Aches, pains, complaints:  Physically, I feel fantastic.

Physically?  But otherwise…?

I’m a little freaked out.  There are not enough weeks left between now and the date of the intended marathon for me to feel confident about boosting my long run by another 12.2 miles.  14 was mighty hard, as it was.  So I’m trying to scale back my expectations, figure I’ll keep training between now and then, and just see what I can do.

Mileage for week:  4 (was meant to be 20)

Number of run days:  1 (was meant to be 4)

Long run for week:  4 (was meant to be 8)

Aches, pains, complaints:  Abort!  Abort!  Abort!  This was a disastrous week, beginning with the bloody toe (now healed, and without loss of nail) and moving to a series of complaints including insomnia, palpitations, and a seriously inflamed knee.  The good news is that it was meant to be a rest week anyhow, just not quite as resty as I ended up making it.  The better news is that I ran the first run of week 9 today, and it felt awesome.  Yes, totally awesome.  So I’m apparently on the mend.  (And, apparently, turning into a surfer-dude.  But that could just come from navigating the torrents currently falling from SoCal skies.)

Mileage for week:  26

Number of run days:  5

Long run for week:  10

Aches, pains, complaints:  Oh, man.  What doesn’t hurt?  I did my first ten-miler yesterday (admittedly interspersed with short walking breaks), and the run was like a saga of various aches and pains.  For the first couple of miles, my knees were a little sore, but they loosened up as I went on.  From mile 4 to mile 6, the arch of my left foot hurt like hell—and then miraculously stopped.  And so on.  I’m feeling pretty okay today, except for the fact that I was completely and totally unable to sleep until about 2.30 am, and so ended up on the floor around midnight in an effort not to wake up R., who has to get up around 5.  Mostly I was awake because I was freaking out about the fact that I think I was supposed to have transferred the condo utilities into my name sometime last week, but completely failed to think of it during the holiday festivities, until last night around 11 when it suddenly occurred to me, and I couldn’t get it to un-occur to me.  But I was also partially awake because I was just plain uncomfortable, in the kind of low-grade nagging sense that can keep you trying first one side, and then the other, for hours, as though you’re going to hit upon some miraculous new position in which nothing hurts.  Word to the wise, however:  moving to the floor does not help that situation.  R., on the other hand, did get a slightly better night’s sleep than he would have with me jumping around next to him, so I guess there’s some success there.  Anyhow, today’s an off day, and this entire week’s a relatively light one, and my poor aching body is grateful on both counts.