This could be a bit long, so bear with me. I haven't been posting like I've wanted to, and I have a lot of info to share. First and foremost, I want to say thank you for this group. The wisdom and experience is outstanding and so helpful.

I did a 7.5 mile LR last night after working through a tuff yard sale for the past couple of days. I'm glad to report, that we made a little money, and the rest will be donated to my church. I ended the week with 25.61 miles, and ended the month of August with 84.39, compared to July, which was 48.73. My foot is really getting better, finally! It is still sore from time to time, but doesn't hurt and is not painful like it used to be. PF is a tuff injury to come back from, because it takes so long to heal. I think the night splint has given the best "bang for the buck".

I've kind of re evaluated my fall goals a bit, and wanted to share. Initially I was going to run 3 halves, with the Oct one being the goal race, and to use the others as training runs. Then try to survive a Dec marathon with a 4:10 goal. Since I've been dealing with PF all summer and my mileage is reduced, speed has gone down the tubes along with my endurance to hold my aim paces, I've decided to drop the Sept half. I'm not going to race the Oct half but I plan to do my best under the given circumstances, who knows, I might surprise myself. I was wanting to cut another 3-4 minutes from my half PR of 1:51:33. The Nov half might be too close for an all out effort so close to the Dec full. And now I just hope to make the full in 4:45. So with all that being said, here are my goals. Following that is an update on my colon cancer bout from a year ago.

I have a few goals for the month;

1. Get my mileage back over 100, with 115-120 being better.

2. Cover the 13.1 distance in training, and then some.

3. Regain a little of my speed and endurance since dealing with PF.

4. Not to have another surgery(see below).

I have been dealing with Crohn's Disease for over 25 years and taking the same meds. My worst symptoms are having bowel restrictions caused by wall thickening, for which I take a lot of stool softeners and laxatives, "to keep me moving". One year ago on August 14th, a tumor was found near one of the restrictions, which ended up being cancer. I had a complete resection of my colon, and was back running in 3 weeks. I was to have a one year colonoscopy as my first checkup.

So the update goes like this; during the colonoscopy, my colon, or large intestine, was completely clean, cancer free for one year, yea. But a new restriction was found in the small intestine, right where it joins the large intestine. All my previous restrictions have been in the large intestine, so I was immediately sent for a CT scan to see what was beyond the restriction. The CT Scan was inconclusive as to whether or not something significant(cancer) was beyond the restriction. I'm being referred back to the surgeon to see if I'm a candidate to have surgery to open the restriction and see what's beyond it. If it were not for the colon cancer a year ago, I would be treated with meds until complications warranted more evasive action. He changed my meds to something more directed at the small intestine instead of the meds I've been taking for 25 years that were focused on my colon. There is greater than a 50% chance I will have/need surgery within the next 5 years, it's just a matter of when. We are pulling the minds together to come up with a treatment plan on how to approach this. The doctor would like to "see" what's in there, but he doesn't have access to the new scopes that are designed to look all the way through the small intestines. There are a couple of facilities here close to us, but don't know if I can be referred there, or even if my insurance will cover. I hope to see the surgeon within a week, then back to the GI doctor for another consult. Stay tuned, and in the meantime, run......

Mitch

Ah, September.  Back to racing for me!  I'm going to attempt to PR in a 5K mid-month, and a 10K at the end of the month.  Both of my PRs are from 2012, so I feel like I want to test them a bit.  Plus we're still far enough out from my Nov half (the real goal of my training) that I will have time to recover well.  In August, I added speedwork (once) and a long run back into my routine.  Now I'm going to let the mileage creep up just a tad, maybe 3-5 MPW, give or take.

Milk Truck- Happy labor day to you as well!  Hope Sept. brings the cooler temps you are wishing for!

Mitch- You are a survivor!  We could all learn from your example with the way you face challenges head on, adjust as needed, and get through it!

Meg- Glad you got a good run in!  Good luck next week!

Mitch

Love the positive attitude and the strength you are displaying.  Keep it up and keep moving.

I always took my health for granted, never once understood being sick and fighting illness's and looking for inner strength. I found myself suffering from depression as a result of all my issues and feeling sorry for myself.  I somehow found the strength to fight off the depression and stopped taking some of my meds the beginning of the year and taking matters more into my own hands and working to get stronger and concentrating on some healthier things in life.  Unfortunately, sometimes things still creep up on me and had a breathing episode last night, but managed my way though it, although got a terrible night’s sleep.

Looking back at August summary, I logged 96 miles.  Damn business trip screwed me up, otherwise I would have easily broken a hundred.  Doesn’t matter, I’m impressed and happy with what I have accomplished.  Still haven’t caught up with all of my June entries yet, so June doesn’t reflect my true mileage, but it’s probably about half of August. It’s amazing what I’ve accomplished in just a few short months.

Its cooler here today (In Rhode Island) with slight rain and I’m heading out shortly for my long run and going to run the actual HM Course.  Should be a good running day, will have to see how my breathing is.  HM is in two weeks, Sunday the 15^th.  Need to sit down and actually plan out my runs for the next two weeks (or not)

Tomorrow I’m officially a 60 year old young man.

Happy running for Sept everyone, we should start to see a lot cooler weather.

Meg - good luck next weekend and I hope the weather cooperates.

Larry - Happy birthday!  Congrats on being 60 years young and running circles around some of us youngsters!

As for me, I broke double digits, finally.  10 miles was actually a lot of fun and I was glad to get past that barrier.  It actually ended up being (pace wise) my fastest long run yet, which makes me happy.  The weather cooperated nicely and I ran a point-to-point run, my husband picked me up at the end, which made me feel like I was actually getting somewhere instead of going in one huge circle.

Ashley, congrats on breaking the 10 mile milestone. Before you know it, you'll be running 10's on a regular basis.

Larry, nice run!

I got 7.6 on Monday night with attempts at doing repeat 800's. I got 3 of them at 8:30 pace, then had to drop to 400's for a couple. Pretty much whipped my behind.

I also did an easy 5 tonight at 9:36 pace. It seems as though things are coming back together.

Do you know what just tops off this challenging training cycle for me? My Garmin dying with less than 5 days to race day. I've done soft resets, hard resets and I just can't get it to hold a consistent charge for the amount of time I need for the race. I think it's done so I'll be looking at the race expo Friday night for a Fr10 to replace my 305.  I did my last real training run this morning. Now to really work on the mental game. It was a challenging summer of training in crazy heat and while I didn't complete as many of my long miles, I did run. I'm trying to focus on the fact that training is more than the long run even though we all focus a lot on the long run. I know the race course and I run on it often. I can do 13.1.

Tara, I can relate. My kids are 6 and 9. My daughter has been starting to show signs of a cold on and off for the last few days and it makes me paranoid about getting sick with the race on Sunday. As if I don't have enough nerves already! Welcome to the group!