Thank you to everyone who contributed. Together we earned over $5,200 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. As a bonus, I got to run the Chicago Marathon, so thanks for helping make that happen to. It is sincerely appreciated.

Love to all,

James

We're in the home stretch. As I write this, we are 19 days away from the Chicago Marathon. Home stretch.

As far as fundraising goes, you have helped me raise over $5,000 for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (so far). Amazing. There is obviously much work to be done to end blood cancer; I am so pleased that so many of you are joining me in that fight.

I'm including a "home stretch" photo from the Boston Marathon. I titled the photo "steps go thud" when I posted it on my blog in 2014. This was my first Team In Training event, my first marathon. You can tell from the look on my face that I was starting to have a rough go of it when this photo was taken.

It's not that bad this time around. When I was training for Boston, I was starting to experience some pretty bad calf cramps during my long training runs. My medical team would later identify these as micro-tears in the calf muscles brought on by overuse. While I was running a little faster then than I am now, I was also running a lot less. I'll average roughly 50% more miles going into Chicago. My longest training run was two miles longer. My confidence is starting to go up... I think I'm going to have a very successful race.

And that's not just because the training is going well, it's because I have an amazing community of supporters. Dozens of people who have stepped up to help raise over $5,000 in the fight against blood cancer, which really is the fight against ALL cancer. Nearly 40% of the therapies going to patients over the last 15 years have blood cancer research as part of their pedigree. Cancers of the blood, lung, breast, pancreas, ovary, prostate, and so much more... They've benefited from the money given through programs like this, whose end game is the end of cancer.

Thanks to everyone who helped this fundraising season be so successful. We're in the home stretch.

If you've been waiting for me to get up into the serious mileage, you're in luck. I've made it. 

On Saturday, I faced the biggest challenge of the season, an 18 mile run. I waited until it was too warm to be starting an 18 mile run, and then I ran out of Gatorade and water while I was out running. Blech!

Fortunately, Sophie was home and brough me some ice and water, and I was able to finish the training run. It was hot, and I was miserable. It took far too long to finish that run, but I was determined to get all 18 miles in. That last mile, I told myself that if I couldn't run I'd walk, and if I couldn't walk I'd crawl, but I would finish my distance no matter what. If you want to read the specifics, you'll find the details on my blog. 

Which brings us to you. If you can spare $18.01, you will help me close the gap on my fundraising goal. I'm shooting for $4,000 to support blood cancer research and patient outreach. I know it doesn't look like it, but I'm only FOUR SPONSORS AWAY. You see, I have over $1,700 on the way, and I'm only $92 dollars away from hitting my goal. If four people gave $18 each, I'd be there. Boom. 100% done. Will you join me? Thanks in advance!

Here's what 18 miles looks like as run through my neighborhood:

We've made it to double digits. With 12 weeks to go until marathon day, I ran another very hilly weekend training run. It went a LOT better than last week.

Part of that was the lessons I learned last week. Specifically, eat a good meal the night before. I don't generally consider a ten or eleven mile run as needing an emphasis on carbohydrates the night before... well, I didn't until last week. This week I went back to trying to have a good balanced meal with some extra carbs in it. The night before this run was really well balanced. Roasted peppers, roasted tomatoes, mashed potatoes, steak, broccoli, and some bread. I drank extra water before the run, and I took a snack with me which I ate around mile three. 

I think the snack was just as important as the meal the night before. When I'm racing, I'm up early enough to eat a bagel before I run, but for these Saturday morning runs I roll out of bed, lace up, and go. Having a snack after three miles helped a lot.

Also helpful this week was having a slightly different goal in mind. I hadn't been doing this for my weekends, but this time I went out in search of specific pacing. My goal was to run between 10:10 and 10:40 miles, and I set my watch to alert me when I fell outside of that range.

I have to tell you, for the first three miles, my watch was really annoying. It was buzzing constantly. Speed up. Slow down. No, really, slow down. Ha! Speed up! You slowed down too much!

Bleh.

But I stuck with it, and after my snack, I finally started getting into the groove. By the end of the run, I felt really good about my pacing, and I was staying in the zone with very few reminders. 

Anyhow, that's what's going on. I managed 10.85 miles. Average pace? 10:17. Good stuff. If you'd like to sponsor me at either number ($10.85 or $10.17), it will be much appreciated.

Cheers!

Today was a struggle... and it really should not have been.

I set out with the goal of getting at least eight miles, but somewhere around mile 5 I committed to nine, and by the time I was done, I was almost to double digits. If you'd like to sponsor my training this week, my long run is only $9.83 to you... but that's $9.83 closer to finding a cure for blood cancer.

It's the hills that get me. I don't shun them the way I did a year ago. I welcome the challenge, but boy, were they a challenge this morning! Total elevation gain this morning was 631 feet. I think part of it was yesterday's track workout. I ended up laying down a total of 12 minutes at 8 MPH or higher, and that's really pushing it for me. My training program does NOT allow track workouts and long runs back to back, and this morning reminded me why. 

If you look closely at the timing and cadence charts below, you'll see three very small walking breaks in the last mile and a half.