You left out "GETM" in your rambling. You can say shit in this thread. In fact, if you want to say shit, this is the thread where you say shit.

I'm glad you asked that because I forgot to mention it already. Dude, this is your race.... and I knew it as soon as I picked up my shirt and saw the medal i'd be getting. The shirt is one of the most awesome marathon shirts i've ever seen. It's long sleeved and technical. They also gave us a finishers hat at the end that is also really nice, it has the logo and 2008 marathon finisher written on it. I only have 3 marathon medals, but St. Louis's is by far my favorite, and largest. I'm not mad at the course, so I don't have anything bad to say about it. There are hills, but they're not unforgiving like CMM. Like I said, had I not had the issues I had, I would have had it in the bag. I didn't buy a whole lot of crap at the expo. Well I did, but not a bunch of logo gear. Just other random stuff that I already have too much of. Whatever. Expos are fun. Who cares. As for your Fargo shirts, at least you don't look at them and say "Damn, 30 minutes off pace." Seems to me that all my favorite race shirts are from races I did bad in. Take the Murfreesboro 1/2 marathon shirt for instance... it's my favorite shirt. I wear it all the time. I did AWFUL in that race. And now, St. Louis marathon shirt is my favorite long sleeved race shirt... there could be something to this. Maybe I shouldn't do races with good shirts.

Candice are you taking this week off from running? If your effort was equivalent to, say, a 30k race then that shouldn't be necessary at all. At the very least I would think you could do a reverse taper this week and next then take a really light week the week before CMM and go for it. If you think it was more than that kind of effort...well maybe CMM is not a great idea. But all of that is kind of a guess. I've never run 2 marathons within 6 months let alone a few weeks. But I've done plenty of 30k and 20 mile ~ race efforts during marathon training and I was able to jump right back into training the next day. Sure I was a little sore after Stu's 30K last month but nothing a couple/few easy jogs couldn't cure. Only you know how you feel. mta: my sense is 17 miles at marathon pace followed by 9 more miles of running any pace is a pretty big effort--probably much bigger than a 30k race. So pretty much disregard what I said above and go by how you feel.

Keep in mind that this marathon will be just to see what happens. You may not have quite the same spring in your step after this last one, even if you think you feel great. I agree with what others are saying. You are still in a "tapered" condition, in that you've only had one hard workout this week. I'd run easily this week; run as you feel able and motivated. End of the week I'd run 10-12 miles for a "long" run. 14 days out. After about an hour of running, how do you feel? Be honest. About 10 days out, I'd do a testing session of intervals. For YOU, I'd recommend nothing harder than the hard workouts you've done in the last 2 months. Maybe a 2-3 mile TT. 2 or 3 mile repeats - something like that. Short, intense, but not killer. See where your legs are. If you don't have any special yardstick like this, it will be hard to gauge. Don't try anything new, but a testing workout would be good. Then some easy miles. a 10 miler about a week out. a 5 and a couple of 3's and run the race. this week might be 30 miles, next week might be a touch under 40.

Here you go, Candice. I'm such a giver.

Thanks Obsessor and Mikey. I guess after today i'll run easy tomorrow and see how it feels. Good advice on both parts. Obsessor I think i'll do the 12 miles this weekend and 10 the next weekend. That sounds like a plan. I think the scariest thing is knowing how much I hate CMM and how just a few months ago I said "You couldn't pay me to run CMM again." I agree that it might not be possible for me to have the same spring in my step as I had Sunday. That was the day. I just gotta get this 4:10 taste out of my mouth. If I do CMM i'm going to go into it without putting any stress of a BQ goal on myself. I just wanna give my training the chance. I'm seeing a coach for some triathlon stuff, but he's a pretty accomplished runner too...anyway, he said he'll help me out with looking into my nutrition and figuring out what's wrong and all that. Scout, thanks for that link. You know, I thought I had this shit all figured out... but race day it's like "haha you dumbass, we pretended to like the food you were eating in training until RACE DAY!"

You've been to Fargo? I am so sorry. Fargo is a place no one should have to go. Oh, you must have lost a bet or something?

He's from ND. He talks like those people in that movie.