Coming of the bridge, having 21 miles behind me, and feeling moisture reappear on my forehead and shoulders, I knew that I was going to make it.  My  feet were pounding, and I could feel my leg muscles begging for shorter and shorter strides.  My calves and my heiney were tightening up, but nothing serious.  I had walked enough during the "I'm no longer sweating" phase that I was barely winded at all.  However, my will had taken a significant blow. So...

This run is amazing!  It has been flat since mile 6 and there is a new monument or symbol or historic something around every corner.  From 15-17 I looked for my family and the crowd was overwhelmingly huge.  Finally, after rounding the Lincoln memorial and heading up toward the White House I caught their eye.  Another helping of Endurance Cubes and a big swig of Gatorade was refreshing, but not nearly as refreshing as seeing them.  My mom, dad, wife, son and daughter all...

Though not a noble principle to live by, the title of this post was born out of a stream of thinking about how to respond to the dozens of inquiries I have had about marathon training.  Thanks to the genius of John "The Penguin" Bingham and his book "The Courage to Start" I learned that if you run, you are a runner.  And if you are a runner then it is okay for you to talk about running, shop at running stores, enter races you have no hope of winning, and live a life...

We have begun our journey to Washington DC for the MArine Corps Marathon and some national site seeing.  Many have asked about tracking my race.  You can go to the website at www.marinemarathon.com.  My bib number is 17727 which is awesome   I have a chest cold which killed my last week of training.  I am inproving and should be ready for Sunday at 8 (Eastern time) ...

Five weeks to go!!!  I am feeling really excited to get this thing under way! This week I will cap with 40 miles (assuming all goes well) including another 20 miler on friday.  So my post today is about goal setting.  It is a tricky science in marathon running.  Well, it is tricky for me as an uber-novice.  My only full marathon was completed in 5:48.  So one goal would be to improve.  However, that was my first and my only goal was to get to the finish line.&...

It has been a while since I updates and I have crossed a few important milestones. Since March 1st I have run over 440 miles.  I feel very strong and have no real injuries.  Even the post race soreness has not been brutal.  My two longest runs came two weeks apart, a 16 miler and an 18 miler.  The 16 miler I ran with people and enjoyed the conversation and frequent water breaks.  But it was slow, over 11 minutes per mile slow, so I was able to finish strong and wasn'...