One month to go!

We are officially one month away from the marathon. I'm both excited and nervous. The last couple of long runs haven't really gone as I'd like, but the 20 miler is coming up next week. We've both had some issues with blisters and properly fueling before the runs. Liz and I will be in Texas next weekend for our annual trip to the DFW fiber fest, and we're going to run the 20 out at some nice trails there. If everything can just come together smoothly for that run, I will be ok. At worst, we'll need to do the early start, and that means getting to the starting line at 4:15am. I really don't want to go that route if we don't have to.

I don't have a whole lot to talk about, so I'll just show you the past few weeks in a random collection of pics. :D

I broke my kickboxing gloves. I'm not sure whether I should be happy or sad about that.

 I'm growing some muscles. In May I'm going to post a weight-lifting update post to show how far I've come in a year.

This is what I'm planning to wear in the marathon.

I have quads.

Liz and me after our 15 mile long run. She looks amazingly happy for someone who had very very horrible blisters on her feet. I never photograph well.

I've been having some shin/calf problems in my left leg. I didn't realize that my current shoes had 350 miles on them, so I bought some new ones. They're identical to my current shoes (I sharpied the old ones to differentiate between them). The shin problems haven't gone away totally, but the intensity has lessened. I use the new ones for running only, and the old ones are my cross-training shoes now.

I recently deleted over 100 pictures that look similar to this one from my phone. The treadmill automatically stops at an hour, so I have to stop and take a picture of it so I can keep track of my time/stats.

I feel so organized now. The last time I bought Gu at Academy, I went ahead and took an empty box as well. Obviously I love the chocolate flavor. I also like extreme cherry and extreme pomegranate beans.

My work gym does regular fitness challenges. This one is a team challenge, and the first 6-person team to log 3000 miles (aka LA to DC) wins. You get miles for running, biking, and classes. See that No Limits 2.0 team that's in first place? That would be my team. :D

A week from today is my last day at my second job. It's a tad bit stressful there, and the benefits were no longer worth the stress. After a year of working 70 hrs/week with no regular day off, I'm pretty sure I'm going to take a lot of naps, catch up on my knitting and TV, and have time to plow through books again. Oh, and I'll have more time to work out, which is always a bonus. I'll be quitting right before the taper begins in my training, and I've heard lots about taper madness, so hopefully I won't go completely insane.

I'm already thinking about my post-marathon training plans. Obviously I'll need some time to recover, so I probably won't do much running in the first half of May. I'm going to start training for the SoS half on July 22, so between May and July 22, I'd like to cut down on my walking breaks. I know that I can run 3 miles without stopping, but I want to make that the norm. I also want to PR in the SoS half, but I'm not going to push myself a whole lot. I'm already planning to run the Memorial Marathon next year as well, so I'd like to try to PR that one as well. Basically, I'm going to go easy on half training, and then crank it up for the next marathon. We'll see how that goes.

Finally, I'm a college student again! I'm enrolled in a sign language interpreter program at OSU. I think it will be a pretty decent backup plan for a second job, or if anything goes wrong in my main, grant-dependent job. It takes a while to get through-I'll graduate in May 2016. Coincidentally, the grant that pays me runs out in June 2016. So we'll see. The vast majority of the classes are in the evenings. I hope that continues to be the case. I'm pretty excited! I bought a backpack today :D