A few more things.

A few other comments about the NH trip.

Genine is a Bree Wee fan. I was fortunate to have Genine ride "run support" on Sunday while IM Louisville was going on. Genine was checking Ironman Live all through breakfast to see how Bree was doing.
We were also checking in on Eric Shabshelowitz. You might remember him from our Mooseman 70.3 Transition videos.
After our run the athlete tracking and the ironman website was no longer working. This was upsetting. Genine was trying every which way to figure out where Bree finished. Finally I logged onto her blog and someone had posted a congrats on 3rd place. Whew, that was a huge relief for Genine. No wait!!! Is that good enough for a Kona Slot?!?! Once that was determined, Genine was able to shut down the computer. Ha! I'm glad she's into it, I'm fairly certain she could name more pro triathletes than I could and I know she can spot them at a race way better than I can.

As for Eric Shabshelowitz? He finished in 14:54:17. Nice work Eric!

Now what about all this marathon training? When you are out there running, you have a lot of time to think about stuff. Sometimes it's actually about running. Here's what's been going through my mind lately.

My friend Bob told me that training for a marathon is way harder than a half iron triathlon. There is no doubt about that. Hal Higdon's run guide says that marathoning is both a physical and mental challenge. Yeah, that sums it up nicely but until you experience it, you don't really know what that means. I'm starting to see that by doing this, I might find myself at a different level both physically and mentally. The physical aspect is easy to understand. Mentally I'm curious if I find that I push myself a bit harder than before when I get back to triathlon training. That might be harder to measure because by extending myself like this, it's as if barriers are being taken down. Once they are down those barriers kind of disappear. Meaning you now pass those without even noticing.

Towards the end of Sunday's run, I was having a hard time pacing myself properly to keep my Heart Rate in the zone I was shooting for. (Zone 2, low zone 3) (152-165). Hopefully that wasn't because of fatigue or hydration but because all the hill climbing I just did and the fact I knew the next 3 miles were basically flat. Either way, I'm hoping to continue to improve my hydration during a run. I know I lose a ton, I should work on trying to find the max I can handle in different conditions.

I also can't say enough about the Hal Higdon Schedule. The chart telling you your mileage is good. It's nice to have a plan that will get you to your goal, but it's the weekly instructions that I've appreciated much more this week.
For example, I've been looking at doing various races. Sprint/Olympic Triathlons and Half Marathons. The Half Marathon fits the schedule perfectly. Or does it? The 12 miler two weeks earlier would have given an easy green light for this race. But now 14 weeks into an 18 week schedule he points out this is no time to risk injury. Only a 5K or 10K in place of both weekend runs would be recommended.
I may still run this event if friends are going but I'll use it as a training day (slow) and be happy that it finished out my requirements for the 9+1 to get into the Marathon again next year.

Next year?!?! There are days that I'm thinking that all this running is absolute insanity! Running more than 2 hours gets incredibly boring. Am I sure I want to be doing this again next year? No I'm not sure but I want to have the option. I'd also like to think that I'll be able to hang onto some of this distance fitness over the winter. That would allow me to consider racing the Half Iron distance at Mooseman next year.

I've been looking at the schedule and my main thought is, "the taper better be something magical" because at the moment I can't imagine running 26.2 miles at my goal pace. This training plan has been used by a ton of people tho'. So really, I just have to believe that it's going to work.

Now that I've tweaked my ankle of course I've been thinking about why that happened. I blame the drive to New Hampshire and back, 13 hours of driving. It's my right foot. All my other problems are left foot issues. I guess I did a really poor job at keeping myself stretched out. I knew at this stage of the training I was going to need to try out the massage option, yet I haven't made the time to get there. What can I say? I'm traveling new territory here. Mistakes will be made. Hopefully I'll be able to run sooner than later.
In the meantime, I've got to figure out other workouts. If I swim, I think kicking is out. So that's not going to help the legs. I'll have to put the bike on the trainer to see how the ankle reacts to spinning. I'm guessing that's not going to work either. So I'm thinking it's time to hit the weight room. What do you think? Obviously I'll have to keep it light.