Less than 3 weeks to go!

Well, as the title indicates, we are less than 3 weeks to go until race time. It's going to come quick. I just finished my biggest week of workouts. Was supposed to do 17 hours. Had time for 15. On Saturday, I had a long run of 18 miles scheduled. I was really nervous about this one, as the last time I had run over 13.1 miles was March 2008...the Atlanta Marathon. Nacho Libre was going to join me and see how far he could make it, given he hasn't been able to run much since his injury. Dogman was also going to do the run with us, though he had a birthday part to celebrate the night before, so he was iffy.

I got to Raccoon River Park right about 9:15. Nacho Libre was a couple minutes late, as he has Nacho Libre time. Raccoon River Park has a 5k loop, some of it on pavement, most on trails. We loaded Nacho Libre's car with gatorade, water and nutrition and stopped for a quick bit at the "aid stations" in between loops. The run had 3 x 1 mile pick-ups. All in all, the run went great. Dogman showed up on time, and it ended up being an easy 19 mile run for him. Yep, we ended up actually going 19.2 miles. Dogman and I pushed the last mile, check that, I pushed the last mile, he was still jogging, at 7:52 pace. Overall, my average time was 8:43 per mile. I'll take it. Nacho Libre also finished the run at around 8:47 per mile.

The next day saw a 100 mile ride/5 mile brick run on the schedule. Also on the schedule were 20+ mile an hour constant winds with 30+ gusts. The ride was not that fun. With the wind at our backs we were easily hitting around 30 mph in zone2 while barely going 12 mph back into the wind. After the ride, the run was kind of a struggle, but got it done. Then, right as we finished, the pizza delivery man showed up and we downed some pizzas. Now, it's 3 weeks of tapering until race day.