Winter/Spring of 2005 has been a somewhat unfortunate time for me. I keep on running into mishaps here and there. Last Friday, a sudden rise in pavement level sent me sprawling to the ground. I was on rollerblades (as I always am) so velocity was not insignificant. Result is that I have a humongo upper lip, a gash near my eye (with rings of black and blue around it now) and a big right cheek, and my top front teeth are still a bit sore from having to stop my head from driving itself further into the pavement. Dripping blood, aches and pains, not fun. But that's not going to stop me from running goddamit!

I popped a couple pills of Naproxen, grabbed a bottle of water and a granola bar, and set out to hit 20 miles today. Most training schedules hit 20 and then taper for a few weeks before the race. I successfully hit 20 and now have one week to rest before the race. Scary, but eh, I'll deal. Most importantly, I managed to run 20 miles without breaking my legs. I actually felt like I could go on for more miles if I had to. Makes me optimistic again about being able to finish the Marathon

2 Naproxen w/o food = upset stomach though so I stopped around mile 12 and walked for quite a bit. And speaking of stomach, I often feel like it is trying to digest itself on these long runs. No wonder too. Statistics of the day:

Weight before run: 134.5lbs
Weight after run and three slices of Pizza: 131lbs
No bowel movements were performed in between the above measurements.

Edit: Oh right, "Training Ends" means that I will not be training any more before the race. Just a few short and easy runs to keep the legs going perhaps but definitely nothing above 5 miles. Besides, the number of band-aids I require to function is increasing daily and I don't want to encourage that.