Thanks Pam. Felt great on the progression and my MP run on saturday. Was a really good week till Saturday night when i felt a little tickle on my throat which is a sure sign for me that a cold is coming. Skipped my sunday morning 13 miler, although the conditions were great for down-wind paddling so i did that instead and paid for it later. Now i'm hoping i'll be fully recovered by tonit. Seems like every time things get rolling a little bump sends me into a little tailspin.

Wow, Steve! Nice 20 miler! Looks like a tad faster than the last one and hope that you are recovering well and feeling good! Looks like a little less than 3 weeks to go. Time to start tapering? Or is your plan a 2 week taper?

YOU are so going to ROCK Honolulu!!! Good luck with your taper!!

Steve, I agree with Mike and Pam, you are gonna do great in Honolulu! You've got some solid long runs in and said you are feeling good! Like you said, your PR is gonna be HUGE! Hey, how about keeping your blog up to date a little more. Slacker!

Well its 2 days before the marathon and things aren't so well. My mom is here and she's been cooking up a storm and me being a food addict have been eating pretty much non stop. Weather has been super crazy with high winds and lots of rain this week, toppling giant trees and large branches fell all over the place. It looked like a small hurricane went through. Its been raining pretty much non-stop and things aren't looking up for the marathon day. We'll just have to wait and see. On top of that, my chest has been pretty congested and i have only been able to put down one run this week between that and the weather. Oh well, in a way its kind funny that i'm not super excited about the race itself, but more giddy about getting back into regular running after the marathon. My biggest and most consistent running in terms of mileage were done before i started this marathon cycle. I'm sure when i hit that starting lineup with gazilion other people the excitement will come (which will inevitably followed by frustration of having to weave in and out of the crowd ). Here's a pic of downed tree right by the finish line..

Pomaika`i this weekend, Steve!

4:41:35 Couldn't get it going, fell apart at mile 20. Will write more later. MTA - Man what a crazy race. It sure wasn't easy the second time around. We woke up at 2:30 AM to a big huge downpour.By the time we head out to the race start around 4 AM things quiet down a bit and we were lined up by about 4:30 AM. About 10 minutes later started pouring hard again, but me and my wife (and about 100 other people) stayed relatively dry under a banyan tree. After the fireworks, the race started, we started moving slowly toward the start line, and I mean slowly...We were only about 1/4 block away from the start but it took over 4 minutes. I had to pee really bad right at the start and tried to pee on the bushes in front of this apartment building but got kicked off by security guard so I ended up having to pee after the start.There were some many people that it was hard to get going. I wasn't really feeling that good so I didn't feel like weaving in and out of the crowd. Tried to maintain a pace that allowed me to breathe ok which was over 10 minute miles at that time. By about mile 2 another downpour came down and this one xlasted for about 10 minutes and soaked everybody. I was actually glad it rained because i was feeling kind of feverish, felt my temperature was rising and overall feeling craptacular, contemplating pulling out. But the rain cooled me off a bit and i thought if i just stuck with it for a while it should be ok. I really had to watch my footing because of all the rain, you can't see the potholes. I wasn't able to put down anything below 10 minute miles until mile 11 when I started feeling good and had my pace drop down to between 9:30 and 9:40. Then darkness came at mile 18. Pace slowed back down to over 10 minute miles, 10:15, 10:30 and then boom...cramping. After that it was just the ol' shuffle, stretch, run, stop, stretch, shuffle, run, repeat until mile 25 where i just went for it, cramps and all, to the finish line. My chip time was 4:41:35...slower than what i had originally expected, better than what i had expected at the start of the race. Its a 25 minute PR over the same course and i was pretty happy. My wife came in at 4:31:15, 11 minute worse then her time last year. She also wasn't feeling very well, she screwed up her back (or rather the chiropractor she had fixing her messed it up) which somehow made it hard for her to breathe. I really need to figure out this cramping business which is consistent in both of my marathons. In the first marathon i attributed it to some poor race nutrition management. But i was pretty good this year, with five gels every 45 minutes. I had a good chance of going 4:15 - 4:20 had I managed to avoid the cramping. Fluids were not a problem, there were tons of aid stations with both water and gatorade and with the rainy/cloudy conditions the heat was not a factor. I did manage to do only one run during the taper week which maybe a factor ? I might try the salt tablet option in the next one and see if that helps. Thanks for all your good kind words and support. This journal will continue as Sub 4hr will have to wait another year (or another marathon).