Stubborn maybe, idiot NOT! Anyway I'm not always smart Yes it is and YOUR going to ROCK IT!!! BUT if you back out, so will I SOOOOO you know what that means ( you think your stubborn) We've both worked too hard to bag the race no mater how old or how many marathons you've ran! BTW your not much older than I am, but you can always use your knee surgery as a reason

Ok, Pam, if the weather is nasty, looks like we're both gonna go down with the ship together! There was a triathlon I did, and I talked a bunch of other people I knew into doing it. They weren't keen on the idea, but it was all for one and one for all. Race day turned out nasty, with huge waves. We were all pretty sucky swimmers. After about 1 minute of getting thrashed around in the water, I said screw this and got out, dried off and changed, went and got a bagel and coffee and sat and watched everyone else. You should've seen the livid looks on my friends faces when they saw me standing there all dry and comfortable, cheering them on.

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse... Picture this. You step into a shower and turn it on full blast. Then you place that shower into a hot sauna with 100% humidity. Then you turn on big hair dryers and blast yourself with hot air. You stand there all dripping and soggy and just cook. That pretty much describes the conditions for the run this AM. Woke up at 5am to the sound of rain and thought "Ahh, this is gonna feel good". Not! I did a double take when I looked at the temperature. At first I though I was reading it wrong, my eyes are usually pretty blurry first thing in the AM. I made sure I was reading it right, and concluded that it had to be malfunctioning. As soon as I walked outside though, unfortunately I knew it was right. 6 incredibly sluggish miles this morning, in a steady rain in hot, muggy, windy conditions . Had no choice but to take it slowly. Getting soaked took on new meaning. I think several times during the run, I audibly let out groans and sighs inbetween my wheezy breaths. When I got back, I went to take the dog out for a walk, he poked his head out the door and looked at me like I was nuts. I think he's right. Pretty soon I'm gonna have webbed hands and feet and gills if this keeps up.

Just think I'm running a 5k tonight in this mess! WAY to tough it out though!!! I think runs in conditions like today really help the mental part. If you can push through this heat and humidity, 26.2 miles in GREAT conditions is going to be AWESOME!! Now lets just pray that conditions are GREAT! As for the webbed feet, I supposely have them since I'm from Seattle. Unfortunatly they don't seem to help me at all here in the east.

Those bugs are gonna be sticking to you really good tonight! I hope they have showers or a lake to jump into when you are done. Again, good luck! Coming from Seattle, you should be right at home then, being soaked all the time. It's crazy how much it rains there. But you have glorious summers! The last time I did Steamtown, I can remember suffering through the summertime training, just like now. Come September with the cooler weather, it was as if someone gave me new legs to run on. So you are right, we just have to gut this out and the reward will be a great race in October! Thanks for the nudge to keep it going, I needed it.

I agree with the mental part and am hoping you are right on the 26.2 part! Look on the bright side - only 46 more days of summer left - or in other words, it's half over tomorrow!

In the winter, we can't wait for the summer. In the summer, we can't wait for winter. Around here, September, October and November are just glorious months to train in. So for next fall, assuming I haven't destroyed my body by then, I think a December marathon will be in order. That way there won't be this pressure to get the workouts in during the middle of the summer.

What a difference a day makes... This morning it was about 8-10 degrees cooler, and about 20% less humid than it has been in a long time. Walking out that front door to run and feeling the relatively drier and cooler air was such a wonderful feeling this morning. The morning started out kinda iffy, when I woke up it was already pretty light out, and I thought "this doesn't seem right". Looked at my watch. DOH! I slept through the alarm! Haven't done that in a long time. After some quick calculations, which isn't easy to do first thing in the AM without having coffee first, I figured if I could get out the door in 15 minutes, I could still get the run in before work. Made some coffee ( first things first of course! ), got dressed, grabbed my water bottles which I always fill the night before, and made it out the door just a tad late. That just meant I had to run faster to make up the time! 10 wonderful effortless miles. Thank goodness for the better weather, otherwise the run would've been entirely different, in a bad way. Part of my route today went over an old wooden bridge that about 1 month ago, someone decided to drive over it who was over the weight limit, and they fell through. Since then, the road and the bridge has been closed to vehicular traffic. You can still run over it though. It's been nice to have that road and bridge all to myself as they do repairs on it. I saw today that they are close to having it fixed, so I guess I'll have to start sharing it again. Since I got a late start, I didn't see the usual deer and other wildlife that usually accompanies me on my morning runs. They had already finished their pre-dawn feasting and had gone into hiding for the day. The only people I usually see that early are the workers riding their bicycles to work in the vineyard fields. They were already in the fields working, but many still yelled out a "good morning" or a "buenos dias" as I ran by. It's become a morning ritual.

Just checked weather and tomorrow's high is supposed to be 74 I'm running tomorrow lol

weeks not over yet I was actually thinking about doing my long run tomorrow and then just doing a recovery run on Saturday and actully maybe just maybe taking Sunday off As for tapering for Lehigh, I probably will at least a little.