It ain't pretty

It wasn't pretty, but it's done. My longest training run before the race is now in the books. 23 miles yesterday starting at 5:20am so I could get my run over and take M to her softball game. The best part was that I wasn't completely wrecked.

Each time I do a 20+ mile run it seems to get a little bit easier and I don't feel as bad afterward. It's going to be tough for me to hit my goal time of 5 hours and 30 minutes on race day but I think it'll be close.

Once again, Laela came out and saved the day by bringing me a PB&J , some Powerade, and refilled all of my water bottles at about mile 15. She waited for in the lot parking lot from 7:45 until 8:40 for me to show up. Running those kinds of distances by yourself requires some planning and I could NOT have completed it without Laela's support.

10111

Tomorrow's ambitious plan. My longest training run before the big show. Sunday is packed with things to do, so I have to get it done early. Hoping to be finished, home and cleaned up by 11:00am.

Fail Whale

Isn't technology great? Or isn't technology really creepy? I haven't decided which.

I signed up with @TweetMyTime to update my status while I'm running the #CbusMarathon, in real-time, during the race on Oct 18 #fb

It'll also update my Facebook status. I'm shooting for a 5 1/2 hour finsih time so it won't be updating quickly.

I can be followed @speedwalrus on twitter.

Tweet my time can be followed @tweetmytime

The Gauntlet

Here is the course map for the Columbus Marathon. It seems a little more real now that I've looked at it. Here's a link to an easier to read PDF.

2008 Columbus Marathon Course Map

Next week is my last long run before the big event. 23 miles on Sunday the 20th. I'm looking forward to completing it and hoping that I do as well as I did last week. It's going to be a little tougher as I won't have last week's run support.

Like Robinson Crusoe it's primitive as can be

I ran today with no electronic devices other than my stopwatch. I felt like Tom Hanks in Castaway. It was the first time I've ever run without an iPod for music. With all of the difficutlties I've been having with my iPod and moisture lately, I didn't want to risk ruining Miranda's if I got caught in a rainshower. It was actually kind of liberating. I knocked out six miles in 63 minutes and 7 seconds. I didn't like having to hear myself breathe, but other than that it was quite relaxing. I used the website nikeplusedit.com to create a file for my Nike+ training program to account for my run. I mapped it using mapmyrun.com so my distance was correct. My graph is inaccurate but the distance and time information is right so that's all I'm really concerned about.