Today was my longest run leading up to the marathon (October 30). I was really pooped after about the sixth mile, looking at the elevation you can see why.

I was aiming to stick to the trail and cross Alabama Street using the bridge, but got a bit turned around and missed the bridge and had to run on the sidewalks and up part of Alabama Hill.

On this particular run, I missed the bridge. At Marine Corps Marathon there is a bridge at mile 20 and a 14 minute/mile must be maintained until then in order to “finish” the marathon.

My time today would not have been fast enough to make the bridge which has me a bit nervous for the actual marathon. I ran 16 miles in four hours.

When I was near home I saw Mike walk out toward me. He helped me up the front stairs and into the bath. He had kindly ran to the store and picked up a couple bags of ice and had the ice water bath ready for me.

Two nevers happened today. I never thought I’d spend my day off run/walking 16 miles in four hours. I also never thought a tub of ice water would feel so good. And it felt SO GOOD! I ended up putting additional ice packs on my knees, though I'm pretty sure I'll be walking a little funny tomorrow.

I love the descriptions of the MCM miles written here .

Here’s just a little proof that running is exhausting.

On this particular day it took EVERYTHING in me to get out of the house and get going. My goal was to run three miles straight. I didn’t make that goal, but I only required one walk break in the first two miles. In the last mile I went back to my walk/run cycle. Overall I was happy with the run especially since it followed a very busy exhausting workday.

I’m in the final leg of my training and am thrilled with all the money that has been raised for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society. The fundraising was a major stress at the beginning of this journey, at this point it is the training.

My new arches and shoes are working out well. I’ve been running and cross training 5 or 6 days a week. Due to the delay in getting the new arches and shoes my training schedule is a bit off. This makes me so nervous. It is difficult to find the right balance with training. I don’t want to under-train and be unprepared; at the same time I don’t want to over-train and get burned out or injured.

As I have never participated in anything like this and as October 30th draws near the thought of running each of the first 20 miles in 14 minutes or less is looming over me. The marathon is 26.2 miles; so far the farthest I’ve run is 13!

I’ve frequently joked that I’m “pregnant” with a marathon. A lot of the emotions are similar as to when I was pregnant with the kids. 1) I’m excited and nervous. 2) Running, training, and race day are never far from my mind. 3) I’m hungry all the time. 4) My body aches in ways that are foreign to me. If you could please pray for strength, safety, and endurance I would greatly appreciate it.

My arches came in a week ago and I’ve been trying to break them in without overdoing it. Initially I was feeling pretty defeated and worried that I had lost too much ground waiting to take care of my feet. Today I had a good run.

I was able to keep most of the run under 12.30/mile, but was stalled by a passing train and then totally pooped out up a hill. Though the hill kicked my butt I was able to run up the whole way. I wanted to keep running, but time and the sunlight was running out.

With the marathon barely two months away, I hope it doesn’t take long to get back to where I was. What made this run a good one was that it gave me that hope.

My training has been a bit modified for the last several weeks due to foot issues. My new shoes finally arrived and they have helped. Until my new arches arrive running has been minimal, just 30-45 minutes every other day and no long runs. My new arches arrive Friday. I really hope they do the trick. Here is a photo from one of my recent runs.

Physical training is definitely a big part of getting ready for the marathon. Mental training is another component. It’s hard to run farther than you ever thought you’d be able to only to run farther two weeks later and farther in a couple weeks after that and so on with the goal of running the ridiculous distance of 26.2 miles.

I learned a lot from running the Chuckanut Foot Race. Knowing that I’d need additional practice running in the race setting is one of the things I learned. It’s similar to preparing for a piano recital. Learning the music is important, but playing it for as many people as you can leading up to the recital is also important as it helps to get some of those nervous bugs taken care of before the big day. Because of this I have signed up to run the Bellingham Bay Half Marathon.

The Chuckanut Foot Race capacity was 800 runners, Bellingham Bay Marathon’s capacity is 2,500. The Marine Corps Marathon capacity is 30,000 (yes, that is four zeros) and it filled up 28 hours and 4 minutes after registration opened. I think this half marathon will be good practice. Yikes! I seriously can’t imagine being in a group of 30,000 runners. Guess I’ll just have to get over that stage fright.

Thank you for supporting me and The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.

Today was a “long run” day. That means I was up and running early. I’m not a morning person and wasn’t feeling terribly motivated, but that’s where group trainings are helpful…so is having a supportive sister who is a long time runner and marathon veteran.

On my way to the trail I picked Robbie up from Mom and Dad’s and away we went at 7am on this Saturday morning.

It was a beautiful morning for a run. Our initial plan was to run seven or so miles, but once we got on the trail and got to talking time and distance seemed to escape us. When we realized the time we turned around and headed back to the car.

All in all we ran for nearly three hours and covered 11.26 miles. Half a marathon is 13.1 miles. It was exhilarating to look at the screen and realize our accomplishment.

It also felt good to reach this goal because, according to the training set forth for beginner runners in Jeff Galloway’s book Marathon You can do it!, this is precisely where I should be by week 10 of training. It’s hard to believe that there is only 17 weeks left until the big day.