Go Erika Go! Doc will be there with you. So excited for you both. Inerita, glad you are feeling a little better. I think you still have a good chance at running Bay Shore strong. Sure looks like a pretty marathon. It is Twin Cities Marathon signup today. It is killing me, not signing up. But I'm going to run Des Moines with P2R. Right P2R?

Go Erika Go! Doc will be there with you. So excited for you both. Inerita, glad you are feeling a little better. I think you still have a good chance at running Bay Shore strong. Sure looks like a pretty marathon. It is Twin Cities Marathon signup today. It is killing me, not signing up. But I'm going to run Des Moines with P2R. Right P2R?

Yes I want to run Des Moines! I'm not signing up until after the Berryman 50 though. (5/17) Feel like I am planning an injury and I'm askeerd at how jacked up I'll be afterwards. I'd like to go for Maniac status. Heart of America on 9/1, Lewis & Clark (St. Louis, different course) on 9/14, then Des Moines 10/19.

Shan, Did you start drinking before you wrote that? Everyone has to find their own rythym. Being competitive and still running for fun is the perfect difficult to produce mix.

"You're not racing against the other runner, the other athlete, or even the unforgiving clock. You are battling the negative voices and demons in side your head. Never let the negative voices win...it's that simple."

Cash - and now I have a mantra!!! I absolutely agree with you!! Now I just have to learn how to avoid that damn paste!!

Bugs, Don't eat the paste = don't do something stupid just because other people are doing it. In kindergarten, sometimes you will see a kid eating a jar of glue paste that is supposed to be used for kids artwork. Then other kids will see the one kid do it and they will try it too just because one kid did it. In marathoning it means, just because someone else is doing something stupid, like running the first mile way too fast, don't you do it. How often have you been at a race, and seen people who are slower than you take off way too fast, and other people get caught up in it, and they go out too fast too. And you wind up passing them a mile or two down the road, and they are walking already. It means have a plan for your race, and stick to the plan. Don't abandon your plan, just because you see other people doing something stupid. I think a lot of us, when we started racing, had a plan, but when the gun goes off and everybody around you is running way fast, that we got caught up in it, and at mile one said ut oh, I just ran the fastest mile of my life and I still have 5 miles to go, an we wound up having to run the last couple of miles way slower than we thought we could have.

Cash, In most races I think, "they'll die later" but they don't. Marathon you usually have enough miles that I've always had a pretty good idea of the pace. That's one of the reasons I like the marathon, it's a run at my pace...no racing. However in tomorrow's 5K the other runner's around me will affect my pace..actually planning on running slightly under a spring, if I die or puke oh well. Higa, That's funny. You were a bandit today! Took kids to see movie Nim's Island, we all really liked it.