10/26/09 - 5 miles

10/27/09 - 6 miles

10/28/09 - 6 miles

10/29/09 - 5 miles

I'm gaining more and more confidence each day. The HR continues to eek down beat by beat. The only thing I'll be lacking come race day will be endurance. Those three weeks of no running really set me back a step or two. Flash forward to today where running 7:20 - 7:30 feels effortless. Race day strategy will be to go out very easy, 7:45 - 8:00 for 13, then negitive split the second half. Keeping my pace under control for those first 13 will paramount to acheiving the final outcome. I have a tendency, especially in marathons, that if I'm feeling good to let the pace creep down. I don't believe I can do that here and get away with it this time. I have to constantly remind myself while running that I'm not trying to PR here but to just get into the show. I may even try to hop in the group with the marathon pacers that are running 3:20 - 3:30 and feed off them. Tomorrow I'm going to run something around 16 and hopefully it will feel good. I will taper just a bit next week but really I have nothing to taper from so I'll be just treating next week as a regular training week only dialing it down a notch. I know it's to early to predict, but weather in Indy for 11/7/09 is calling out sunny and a high of 63... I'll take that in a heartbeat!

pm)14 miles..

Nice run today, 14 miles in 1:38 and change.. Nothing blazing but still... GAME ON!! As long as I play it smart for the next couple of weeks, I think I can still squeak in a qualifying time.

All is going well this week.

10/19/09 - 5 miles

10/20/09 - 5 miles

10/21/09 - 7 miles

10/22/09 - 10 miles

No calf incidents, feeling pretty good despite no "real" running for three weeks. All running has been between 7:15 and 7:35/m average. HR has been higher than normal, but like I said, that is expected. It has been dropping each time I go out. Still have high hopes of getting this marathon in and qualifying.

After a two week self mandatory layoff... I was able to run 3 miles on Saturday without incident. Still playing it a bit safe, I took yesterday off. I plan on running something around 5 miles today. Saturday's run was surprisingly quick (7:25/m avg, AHR 149) HR was a bit high but I wasn't surprised at all about that. The weather is nice and cool and crisp. Perfect running weather... I still have hopes of running Monumental in 3 weeks.. It won't be the time I was hoping for, but right now I'm just looking at running something around 3:30 to get into the show. I'll save the PR for Boston.

Well my season is pretty much over for awhile.. After taking a full week off of running to give my calf a break, I went out for a short run yesterday and could feel the calf going about 3/4 of a mile into the run. I plan on taking an extended break from running now for at least 4 weeks. Will probably hop on the Giant TCR Zero and put in some time in on the road. This injury is so frustrating... Every time I get to a comfortable level, something like this happens. Maybe I should just stick to short distance races, it seems like the longer runs eventually becomes my downfall. ciao...