Here we are again. Another big training week in the books, capped off by a new long distance of 18 miles on Saturday. We continue to plod through our training and fight of the aches, pains and parnoia of serious injury. Someone getting sidelined at this point in the game (after 25 weeks of training) would be a tough pill to swallow without a doubt.

The long run on Saturday was slower than normal (9'50" average per mile), but I think we've all attributed it to the training load. This plan has a 2 week taper period before the actual marathon, so that time of rest and recovery should (let's hope) deliver us to the starting line ready to go. And just before that taper is our longest training run of 20 miles, which comes a week from Saturday. It's all downhill from there.

Over the last week or so, we've started looking more closely at our agenda for our time out West, which makes this whole thing seem more real and has helped the motivation as well. Monterey, San Fran, Napa Valley - here we come...

A couple of video clips this week. The first set is from an early 9 mile run. I'll just say that I've been lucky enough not to suffer from Mike's "condition". The second clip is just after the 18-miler - tired, salty and ready to sit down.

B