Big Catch-up Post

Okay, here goes. When last we left our intrepid marathoners, they were preparing for their first 18-miler—week 12, day 3.

Week 12, Day 3:

Our first 18-mile run went really well! We dropped Abel at Aunt Lora's house and ran down to Shoen Place, where we picked up the canal. We ran the canal back to Genesee Valley Park, and ran up to Elmwood Ave. Then we ran over to East Ave., and we took that back to our starting point. It was a long, incredible run. Very little pain, and we finished pretty strong, very proud of ourselves. Then I went to the GRADA Ultimate playoffs and played in my team's second game of the day. But only a few points at half-speed. Fun times.

Week 13, 5-8-5-18:

Strangely, I have a lot more knee pain on the shorter runs than on the longer ones. The five and eight mile runs were much more painful than the 18 we did. Anyway, funny story about that 18. It was Friday night at about 8:30, and we were packing up our bottles and gels and things, preparing for the next day. I had been dreading the Saturday run all day Friday, because the forecast was for high 90s and humidity. As we were filling our bottles, Tracey said, "You know, if we could find someone to sit with Abel, we could go tonight." An idea so crazy it just might work, so we did it.

Turns out it was awfully hot and humid even at that hour of the night, and we were pretty miserable for the first few miles. Then we started to see heat lightning...then we heard some thunder...and suddenly, we were running through a good old-fashioned summer downpour. No complaints from us, though, because it cooled us right off and energized us. It stopped after about 20 minutes, but for the rest of the night, we could just smack a hanging tree branch to cool off under a shower of rainwater. All told, it was more difficult than the previous week's 18-miler, but boy, were we glad the next day when we could just sit inside in front of a maxed-out air conditioner instead of running for 3-4 hours.

Week 14, 5-8-5-9:

Ah, the taper begins! It's a pretty awesome feeling to be able to say, "Hey, we 'only' have to run 9 miles today!" Still having some knee pain. Well, I say knee, but it's really the muscle just above and inside the knee. Our physical therapist friend (a marathon veteran) has suggested I stretch more. Okay, if I have to...

Update on total mileage: 329. (I turned one of the eight-mile runs into a four-mile run because my schedule was really tight that day, and I was hurting pretty bad to boot.)

Two more weeks until the race! This week is a glorious 3-5-3-8, and next week is 3-3-3-26.2! We're almost there! Now's the time I start begging anyone reading to come see us on race day, September 16. And even better, if anyone wants to jump on the course to run a few miles with us toward the end, I'm sure we could use the boost!