48oz. Water, 1400 Calories, 3 Bebo Norman CDs

With the marathon approaching less than two weeks away, the running has become far more evaluative. I am testing different running paces on my body to see how well I feel afterward, and adjusting accordingly so that hopefully, my lungs won't be the cause for my demise.

Today, I ran for 12 miles. During that run, I consumed that last of the 48oz. of water I took with me, with only about 2 tenths of a mile left. I burned 1400 Calories on that run, and shuffled Bebo Norman CDs on my ipod.

I have found that music that typically pumps me up for something like a soccer game, or a short run, seem to motivate me to finish too quickly and run at a pace that is harder to sustain for the long term. A more mellow sounding music, like that of Bebo, seemed to leave me in a calm mood and allow me to just trot along without thinking too much about what my body was enduring.

My legs felt real good running the 12 miles today, but when I stopped to walk and cool down I could feel the fatigue in them. I can feel some uneasiness in my joints still now, but it is decreasing pretty rapidly with the time. Lucky for me, tomorrow is a day of rest before I run on the weekend (Friday counting as weekend). I'm hoping to complete a run of 16-18 miles this weekend at some point, and then just a couple of shorter ones next week before the marathon on Sunday the 7th.

After realizing I had burned the 1400 calories, I sat down to regain them (I ran before I ate lunch). It was a wonderful time of consumption as my body regained some of the energy I had just used.

I haven't finalized in my head yet what it feels like to run at certain paces. I though that I could feel as comfortable as possible in a marathon, running without stopping at about a 10 minute a mile pace, so had done a couple of runs hoping to aim for that, but even today, I found that when I had finished, I had run quicker than that and felt fine for the run. I know I could have run farther today, but don't know that I had 14 more miles in me at the time I finished.