And on the fourth week, she rested.

So my 14 miler came and went. Funny, it was really uneventful. It was the longest I had ever run and I thought at the end I would feel something special, but the only thing I could feel was the throbbing in my feet. I chose a slightly different route then the one I posted last week. I ended up meeting up with Robin for the first 7 miles and the miles really did fly by. Then we split at the Brooklyn Bridge and I battled out the last 7 on my own. At one point I really did think about stopping and going home, but somehow I managed to keep moving. My feet, calves, and outer thighs were so sore by the time I was done--but oddly enough, after the 30 minute train ride home, I feel about 90% better. And the next day? Pretty much at 100%.

Regardless, I am more than thrilled that Week 4 is a cut back week and I will only be running 18-20 miles. More importantly, my long run will only be 6 miles! I definitely don't think my legs realize 100% yet what's going on. A little concerned that the 14 miler seemed so hard starting mile 9...although last weeks run I was starting to get tired by mile 7...Still messing around with pre/during run nutrition and fluids, which is hard because the race is in November and it wont be nearly as hot as it's been (we hope!) and I think my nutrition needs will be different in 40 degree weather.

I have to give to props out to Joe and his awesome blog: http://regularjoerunning.com/ Not only did he recently post the most thorough write up of his experiences at the Philadelphia Marathon (which gave me the chills reading it), but he also posted something really interesting about nutrition that I decided to try out this weekend. I decided to eat real food on a run. About 5-6 miles in, I stopped to refill my water bottle, and ate a min-Luna Bar--they're tiny and only 100 calories. Amazingly it never felt like it was sloshing around in my stomach, nor did it cause me any sort of digestive distress. It was really a nice change to EAT something, instead of fighting with a Gel packet. Then mile 9.5 or so (when my legs were starting to fatigue badly) I took a Gel. I like this idea of alternating food and Gel, and I think I'll definitely play around with it a little more. This was the first time where I ended a long run not felt "empty" and it was great. Now if only my legs cooperated!