Good morning

Less than a week away from marathon #10!! I feel good--ran sparingly last week with Thanksgiving and all. Plus Ive been crazy busy selling and finding and shipping stuff for my website. Cant wait for the marathon, and the rest/vacation afterwards. Fly out Friday and get in around 11:30 pm My wife's cousin and girlfriend drive in from LA and will get in before noon--shes running the half..I think she will be running about a 10 minute to 10:30 pace..if so, I'll stick with her down the strip. I think she ran her previous half in 2:30 ish, so she might be a bit slower..so I'll play that by ear. I'll at least stay with her for a couple miles. My dad and stepmom will be there Friday night. Trying not to worry about logistics and focus on pre-marathon prep. But seems like I have all the meals and stuff planned for the entire trip--which isnt typically my style. We stay until Wednesday morning. I plan on relaxing and not doing work stuff (much) after the race.

Murphy - it sounds so exciting!!! You sound so together which is nice! I hope you have a great time!

while physically they are not the same I think mentally it is a tough call. At least when you are doing the survival type of marathon. I mean really for both you have to find some happy place deep inside and try to focus on that otherwise my brain would get bored!!

Hym, fishing is sitting drinking beer. Running is drink piss water and hope you don't poop your pants. I guess it depends are you fishing musky where you're constantly casting, are you running a marathon hard? Still a stupid comparison.

oh i was thinking fishing alone on a lake... not with a group of people. I think we would need more details for this comparison to be any good.

Since when do you need people to drink beer while fishing? I thought one of the major points of fishing was to get away from people.

Somehow I doubt that fight was about the rigors of fishing. Beer drinking is encouraged but probably optional. Very few knee injuries fishing. Sunburn can be a bitch though. My wife and I fight like clockwork. On a 28 day cycle clock. Not saying its all her fault though. Other times, I can say almost anything and it won't turn into a fight. My folks are in town for my promotion tomorrow. DW is stuck at home with them. I should've taken the day off. Don't think I'll be running until its over. Lots to coordinate (food, drinks, ...). Sort of a big deal. I'll pass along some thoughts on your HM training here Shan rather than over in the swamp. If you do nothing other than get your weekly mileage to 30 consistently and your long run up to 10 (think 4, 4, 6, 4, 10), your pace and stamina will increase dramatically. It seems to me you've got some natural talent as evidenced by your recent 5K time so its just a matter of feeding that with some volume. 8 weeks @ 30 and you'll need to reevaluate everything, your time goals, your training, your priorities. Then you can add some tempo stuff, intervals, hills, etc and see where that takes you. Building to that safely will be the key. You dont' want to go crazy in December, end up with an injury in January, and then try to recover the month before the race. I look back at my goals for 2008 and realize that I ended up achieving all of my PR goals without achieving any of my mileage goals. I can only wonder how much better I would've been had I been able to run consistently without injury.

Dave - thank you for taking the time to write this. I will be back with thoughts later, but wanted to get that out there before you can't talk to us for a few days. And YEAH FOR YOUR PROMOTION!!! Oh and by the way - DH has made a kegorator.

good point - but I would still get lonely... beer isn't THAT great of company... really I've only fished a couple times and got bored within 10 minutes - even with other people to entertain me... I'd MUCH rather be out running a marathon (she says from her whole 1 race experience).

I would never tell anyone that they couldn't do something. In general we are all much more capable of reaching goals than we realize. I think this was just some backwards way of him getting me to fish more. It would be hard for me to get the boat in the water, and I hate touching worms but there is not much I don't think I couldn't do if I wanted to... That how I feel about running a marathon. Now there's a big difference in marathon accomplishments. It's an individual thing, no need to compare.