This past year was a big year for my and my little men hobby so I'd like to take a moment and recap it.

When Spoony and I moved in last September we decided to start Warhammer Fantasy armies. I chose Wood Elves, joined a Tale of Painters event at Librarium Online and ended up with a 2000+ point painted army. Over the course of those 12 months (not all technically in 2008, but I'm going to count it) I painted 78 models and went from what I would consider a low level painter to someone at the higher end of the painting spectrum. I don't consider myself a fantastic painter by any means but I think within the scope of people who paint miniatures I think I do alright for myself.

over the course of the year I went from painting the fellow on the left to the one on the right

I was (and still am) incredibly proud of how hard I worked and the improvements I made as a painter and I continue to get better. Once the elves were done I stared a Crimson Fist army and a Khador army. The Crimson Fists are an exercise in improving my speed while maintaining my quality and the Khador is about my improving my quality. Right now I've finished 25 models for the Crimson Fists and 3 models for the Khador.

Stealing another idea from lone pilgrim I'd like to give myself a score based on my productivity last year. His scale is 1 point for infantry, 2 points for cavalry or bikes, 5 points for monsters, dreads, and 'jacks, and 10 points for vehicles. Over the course of 2008 (and some of 2007) I painted 92 infantry, 12 cavalry, and 2 'jacks for a total of 126 points. I think I can match or beat that in 2009.

A new month means a New Model Fund update. I didn't spend any money on my hobby last month so I lose half of that month's left over money (half of 50 is 25) and pick up another 50 for this month, bringing my new total up to $75.

This month I will be spending some money towards the hobby. I plan to purchase the rest of the models that I need for my Khador Army (Koldun Lord and Greylord Ternion) as well as a Kodiak. I'm also going to puy some paints because I am out of black primer and running low on some other important colors. I also need another Space Marine Assault Squad but I can put that off for another month.

I recently finished my squad of Terminators after struggling with them for nearly a month.

I am pretty happy with how they turned out and I was ecstatic to finally have them off of my painting table. For my Tale of Painters this month I have a squad of 3 Man-O-War Demo Corps and a 4 man squad of Widowmakers to paint for the Khador and no real idea what to do with the Crimson Fists.

My 1000 point list has left to paint a commander (150 points), two Rhinos (35 points each), and a 6 man assault squad with power fist (143 points). I have all but 2 of the assault marines build already but none of them are primed and I have almost no primer left. I do however, have a 5 man scout squad primed and ready for paint. I may hold out for the black spray to arrive (I can paint all of my Warmachine models while I wait) and see how much I want to do, or I may just prime the commander and paint him - time will tell.

After a few more days of diligent painting I completed my Wild Rider Noble.

I tried a few more of the washes on him and I had some pretty good successes. I used Gryphonne Sepia on his helmet horns, Asurmen Blue in his hair, and Badab Black on the skulls on his cape and on the horse's skin. The blue worked really well on the Waywatchers earlier and continued to do so here. The black was probably the star of the show though. It really added depth to the two skulls and did a great job bringing the horse's skin together.

This completes the 2000 point army list I've been working on for the past year.

Huzzah!

Last Monday Laura was doored by a woman in Brookline Village. She ended up getting away with just a broken elbow but the whole experience was terrifying. The two of us spend some painful hours in an ER where we got jerked around by the doctors. The next day I called Jenn because I had no idea what to do, and she reccomeneded a doctor at Boston Medical. We went and he was great, and since then Laura has been doing a lot better. Her elbow still hurts a lot, but the swelling has gone down a lot and her range of motion has improved as well.

She has another appointment next week where hopefully we'll learn that everything is healing well and that there are no more problems.

This past weekend I crushed my 12 mile run. I know that the middle six miles I was cruising really hard both down and up Heartbreak, and I know that the last three miles were a bit slower because I was pretty tired. I ended up averaging 7:49 per mile, which means that I was going faster than that for the middle six. This week is the last up week before the taper and Lisa and Ia re hoping to have a more successful 20 miler than we did two weeks ago.

I've been doing my best to crank out my last Wood Elves before October 1st. Last week I had a lot of painting time while I was taking care of Laura and I managed to finish my last Waywatcher.

Waywatcher Noble

This is the noble model, but since I couldn't find 6 distinct Waywatcher sculpts I brought this guy in to finish out the squad. I'm not as happy with this guy as I was with the blonde or gray haired Waywatchers, but I think he looks good and I'm one model closer to being done.

This weekend I made a really good start on the Wildrider Noble who is the last model I need to paint. I have him broken down into three sections, main body, arms, and horse. I finished the body (the largest part) and I hope to finish the arms tonight. Once that's done it will be a single night's work to finish off the horse and then I'll be done with the elves!

I put up a few ebay auctions for some models that I won't be using, specifically a OOP Space Marine Land Speeder and some Knights of Chaos. Both auctions have watchers and one already has a bid.

I also bought some tiny rare earth magnets after reading this post over at All Thinkgs 40k to play around with magnetizing my Space Marines.

I finished up the Waywatchers this weekend.

All five



A close up that shows the hair and details.

I'm really happy with how the hair came out on these models (the two who have it anyway) as well as their dark green cloaks. The details really help bring these models to life and they look great lined up with the rest of the army. I have two more models left for this army, and about two weeks to get them done it. The end is nigh!

I made use of some of the new Games Workshop washes on these guys, which was something I hadn't done before. I really wanted to bring some definition the their faces, so I tried the Gryphonne Sepia in several different scenarios. Overall I wasn't terribly impressed, although I will probably try once more with Devlan Mud. I had a little more luck with the bone colored armour on their chests. I started with Bleached Bone and gave a pretty liberal coating of Gryphonne Sepia over it. Again, not really a rousing success but better this time. The washes really shined on the two models with hair though. The Gryphonne Sepia helped bring a lot of contrast to the blonde hair, and Asurmen Blue was a hero on the gray hair.

While I had been hoping for more success with these new washes, I had enough to warrent me going out to purchase the Devlan Mud (brown) and Badab Black (black) ones to see what they can do. I wanted to make use of them for shading on the power armour of my Crimson Fists, so we'll see what happens. I may also try some more flesh experiments with Ogryn Flesh.

I am really itching to start my Crimson Fists army. I've been pouring over pictures online of well painted marines and I keep coming back to two painters who are very inspiring to me. The first is Cyric the Mad because of the bold and bright highlights he uses. His models have a very clean look that I like and I think his style would be easy to replicate.

The other is spikyjames. His style looks a lot less bold from far away but has a very bold effect from up close. The painting techniques he uses look quite a bit more complex but the results are incredible.

My goal with the Crimson Fists is to find a good balance between these two styles.

This past week was my first 50 mile week ever; Lisa and I ran 20 miles yesterday to cap it off. The 20 miler didn't go as well as I had hoped but after skipping a week of training for the road trip and having a rough few weeks due to stomach problems I was happy to finish at all. Lisa looks to be in phenomenal shape and I'm sure she won't have any problems qualifying for Boston.

Lisa and I went on a nice 12 mile run yesterday. I felt like I was gliding along at a really nice pace for the first 10.5 miles, and then I felt like I ground out a good finish up South Huntington, but my watch told me that I was just under 9 minute miles for the whole thing. That's a lot slower that I thought I was going (and hoped I was going) but I'm still pretty happy with the run overall.

This week tops out at 50 miles, 20 of which will be run on Sunday. I've never run that much in a week, and 20 mile runs are always a daunting prospect. This week will be a good indicator of where my training is now and how I'll be for the marathon.

Laura and I were at Cambridgeside Galleria this weekend getting some clothes and I decided to stop into the Petsmart there to see if they had any neons. They did and I ended up bringing home a dozen of them (although I only asked for 10). The attrition rate was pretty awful and I ended up losing five of them at an alarming rate, but the remaining seven seem to be doing alright. They are still pretty skittish and like to hide in the back corner behind some plants, but they were moving around pretty well when I woke up this morning. Their eating has been pretty sparse thus far but I'm sure they'll get hungry eventually.

I finally sat down last week and started painting some Waywatchers.

I have most of the major color blocks done (skin, tabards, cloaks, and cloak details) with just the leather left before the massive detailing begins. These models have tons and tons of little things all over them; my goal is to finish the leather in the next few days and then do the detailing on one or two a night. Even though these photos don't show it, the highlighting on their cloaks looks really good. I took my time and paid attention to where the highlights should go and at the end I was really happy with how it came out.

More Crimson Fists painting research. A guy named spikyjames (who is already in my big thread of marines) does some really excellent work with marines. His poses and conversions look very realistic and dynamic and his highlighting is fantastic.

His Ultramarines are painted with the following (taken from his Warseer project log):

1- base coat of midnight blue allover
2- regal blue on all the armour plates leaving midnight in all the recess's
3- 1st highlight of 50/50 regalblue/ultramarine bluefairly fat around the edges of the armour
4- 2nd highlight ultramarine blue around all the edges of the armour(edging only)
5- 3rd and final highlight space wolf grey only on the extreme edges of the armour plates

This produces something that looks like this:

I think I can replicate this effect (not nearly as well, but enough). I really like how step 3 in his process adds something akin to a glow on all of the edges, instead of an extreme highlight. I also like the white dots he adds to the back of the lenses; I've seen it before and I'm going to try to incoprate it into my Fists.

I finally got a start on my Waywatchers. Right now their skin and smocks are painted, and I hope to get some of their camouflage done tonight. The models are very detailed and I've been taking my time on them. Thus far they've turned out pretty well and I hope I can do them justice. I tried using some washes of Gryphonne Sepia on their faces to bring out the details but I don't think it worked terribly well.

After taking a week off of running I wanted to come right back and get into the swing of things. My plan was to run 4, 5, 6, and 7 miles starting on Monday, take a break on Friday, and then return with the normal rotation on Saturday and Sunday. For some reason I ran the 4 and 5 milers at around 7:15 pace per mile and I'm paying for it now. My legs have been sore and tight for two days and I'm going to cut the 7 miles down to 4 to try to work the soreness out before this weekend.

Those two runs pretty much cemented for me that I won't be able to qualify for Boston this year. That pace of 7:15 is what I need to run per mile in order to hit the 3:10:59 qualifing time, and if I can barely hit it on 9 miles over two days I suspect that I won't be able to hit it for the full 26.2 I'm surprisingly unconcerned however and I still think I can get a PR at the race.

I've been here (and by that I mean driving across the country) for the past week.

The blog ends with our arrival in Vegas sometime on Friday night. I was exhausted and passed right out. Saturday we spent at the pool drinking beer and swimming (sometimes at the same time!) before donning suits and heading out to the casinos. I ended up losing 200 bucks playing blackjack and craps, but it was a fun time. I'm going to miss Spoony a lot, but he'll be around for ultimate and we made plans to meet up at some big Warhammer tournament sometime next year.

I only managed one run over the past week, which is a bit troubling to me. The one was a gorgeous 2 hour, 14 mile run along the coast of Lake Michigan that I was feeling really good about. I'm planning on doing 4 miles today, and increasing one or two miles every day depending on how I'm feeling.

At this point I don't think I'll be able to qualify for Boston this year, but I'm still going to train hard and do my best. I think I over-simplified the type of training I'm going to need to do in order to qualify, but I think the mistakes I made this time around will help me later on.

Spoon and I stopped at a comics / gaming store in Albuquerque so I could get a copy of White Dwarf to read in the airport. I ended up getting a few back issues and I really enjoyed reading it. There are all sorts of good tutorials and articles and tons of detailed shots of very well painted miniatures. I ordered a subscription today along with the Dark Elves and High Elves Army books. I've also been doing some more research into my Crimson Fists, so I need to get in gear and finish off those seven Wood Elves.

My laptop still hasn't arrived, but I know they've charged my credit card; hopefully it arrives soon.

Apparently I missed most of July here.

Marathon training has been going pretty well. I've been a lot less tense about nailing workouts this time around. I'm still doing all of them, but I'm a lot more willing to play with my two rest days and shuffle around the schedule to fit in with my life, as opposed to fitting my life into my marathon training. I am a bit concerned about my ability to qualify for Boston though. The idea of 7:15 miles is pretty daunting and I haven't done much to improve my time. I did run 4 miles yesterday at 6:53 pace, but I was pretty tired out at the end. I might talk to some friends who know what they're doing to see what I should be doing.

My climbing has been almost non-existent since the beginning of the month. Laura and I keep making plans and then canceling them because we're both exhausted from the week. We're looking to get there this week sometime, but who can say.

Wildwood was awesome, except for Drew breaking his clavicle. We didn't win a trophy due to massive thunderstorms, but the ultimate was fun and the party was great. Laura and I had a lot of fun together and I hope to repeat again next year.

This past weekend was Dar and Katie's wedding. I will admit to being in denial right up until the ceremony itself, but something about all the tuxes, dresses, flowers, and church made me finally deal with it. The ceremony was very nice and everyone seemed to really enjoy it. The reception was also a very classy affair with lots of food, dancing, and booze (at one point I had three drinks in front of me). Daryl and Katie seemed genuinely happy and that is probably the point.

I finished a unit of Wildriders for my Elf army, which leaves me with only 7 more models until completion.

I have (I think) all of the models I want for my Crimson Fist army at this point, which I will start painting once the elves are done. Through the wonders of ebay I purchased $290.00 worth of figures for $219.37, which is 25% off retail. This hobby is pretty damn expensive but being patient and smart on ebay really helps.

A few quick photos from Quincy:

The main crag.

I set the anchors on top of the main crag...

... and no one died!

This is the second Crimson Fist test model I have painted. I tried to go with thinner highlight strokes on this model with a different color blue. I think the technical highlighting looks a lot better but I'm not sold on the color so I will probably make a third tester with the new style and old color of highlights. I'm also still deciding whether or not I like the all brown base (Test 1) or the brown and gray base (Test 2).

Test 2.

Test 2 and Test 1 side by side.

Last week I started training for the Bay State Marathon which runs on October 19th. Lisa and I will be training together again but this time we're looking to take the next step in our program. We're going to be doing the Intermediate II schedule from halhigdon.com (last time we did the Intermediate I) and also incorporating tempo runs, pace work, and possibly some core work as well.

This first week of training was pretty rough. I jumped right back into 5 days of running per week after not running for almost 4 weeks. My body is pretty tired and sore but I worked through it and after my 10 miles yesterday I am feeling pretty good about the whole thing. I think the hardest run I did was the 6 miler on Saturday because I pushed the pace pretty hard on the way home and paid for it. I toned it down for the 10 miles on Sunday and managed to run pretty evenly (somewhere between 8 and 9 minutes per mile) and strongly the whole time.

Runs: 5
Miles: 28.4
Time: 3:51:50

The other weekend Laura, Jason, and I took a trip out to Quincy for some climbing. I set the anchors and did a pretty good job. I was nervous about the whole thing but I think I was pretty successful. The climbs weren't very hard but there were some interesting ones.

Today is Laura and my two year anniversary. To celebrate, we went to the ICA on Saturday, had sushi for dinner, and saw Get Smart. Tonight we're going to a place called Shabu Zen in Allston. Neither one of us has been to a restaurant like this before but it looks pretty exciting. It's been a wonderful two years thus far, and I anticipate more of the same.

I haven't made a whole lot of progress on my Wood Elves in the past few weeks. I managed to paint up the last four Dryads in the army, which leaves 5 Wild Riders, 6 Waywatchers, and 1 Wild Rider Noble left for the army. Of that, I've made a start on one Wild Rider horse.

Branchwraith, Branchnymph, and two two Dryads

I've also made a discovery that is a bit disconcerting. Apparently, Games Workshop has stopped production of half of their Waywatcher models. Currently I have six models for the unit, but only three unique sculpts. I don't like having duplicate models in a single unit but I am not sure where I am going to get an additional three models with different sculpts. Games Workshop does make a Waywatcher Noble model, but that still leaves me two models short. The idea of hacking up and converting metal models is not appealing so hopefully ebay or the interwebs will provide a solution.

I have all the models I need for about 1000 points of Crimson Fists sitting on my desk. I'd like to get them assembled and play a game or two with Spoony. Once 5th edition and the new codex comes out I will buy some more models and take it up to 1500 or 2000 points. I've started a second test model to try a few different things out and I think I'm closing in on what the final scheme will be.

The other day Bannister, in what I can only assume was some sort of protest over the terrible way I've been treating him this winter, threw his chain as I was going into a busy intersection and nearly killed me. When I stopped to fix that problem I noticed that the rear hub is totally boned. I'm in negotiations with Woodrow now to purchase a set of wheels from him.

Work has been really stressing me out lately, so much so that I left sick halfway through yesterday. It was a good decision I think, because I'm a lot more motivated and focused today. I don't really know what it is about this week, but I was just not very happy here or enjoying what I've been doing lately. I'm hoping a solid weekend will get me back on track.

I'm approaching the end of my Wood Elf army. Yesterday I finished off the Dryads, and all that's left at this point is some Wild Riders and Waywatchers. I'm excited to have this project done. I've learned quite a bit about painting and had a lot of fun getting this army from concept to completion.

Once these guys are done I'm going to begin work on an army of Crimson Fists. Already have 5 tactical marines, 5 terminators, and a rhino assembled, and another 10 tactical, 5 terminators, and 1 rhino on the sprues awaiting some attention. I'm currently looking into purchasing an assault and devastator squad as well, which should get me somewhere between 1000 and 1500 points. The scheme will be pretty typical of Crimson Fists.

I was aiming for some bold highlights, but I think I overdid it just a little. I have a bunch of ideas on how to improve this scheme on the next test model which I think are going to work really well. Also, these models come out in October and I'm planning on picking up a set of each:

Veterans on foot (from Bell of Lost Souls)

Veterans with jump packs (from Bell of Lost Souls)

Climbing has been sporadic at best over the past few weeks. There was a period of time where I thought my new shoes were going to be too small and painful, but I believe that I have fixed the problem now. They are incredibly precise and powerful and I'm pretty pumped to see how they work out.

I think I need a break from running. Since the marathon ended I don't have anything that I'm working towards and running has become something of a chore. I've been inconsistent at best with keeping in shape and at this point, two or three runs a week of 4 miles almost feels like a waste of my time. Mostly I just feel unmotivated and unexcited about the whole thing. My plan is to take a few weeks / months (whatever feels right) off and come back excited and with a goal (what that goal is I have no idea, but something).

My return to climbing has been going pretty well though. Last weekend I bought a bunch of new gear, including quite a bit of cord / webbing / slings and a rope. I took it to Hammond a few days ago with Jason and Kev and we climbed some simple stuff; it was a lot of fun to be outside again. Laura and I went to Metro where I struggled up a 10c, rocked a 10d, and tanked on a 10d/11a; that all tells me that the routes were not terribly consistent but that I am in pretty good shape for how long I've been back climbing. Hopefully some people will want to spend this weekend up at Rumney where I can get in some good solid leads.

My Wood Elves are shaping up pretty nicely. I'm now about 700 points away from having a full 2000 point army painted. In the 10ish years I've been in (and out) of this hobby, I've never had more than a few hundred points of anything painted, and what I had looked like crap. I'm really proud of this army and I think it's going to look great when it's done.

I've also started thinking about what I want to do once the elves are done. I was initially hesitant to start anything new since Spoony will be leaving and the GW store moved out of Harvard Square, but I realized that I'm not much of a gamer anyway so nothing has really changed. Initially I was thinking Deathwing, then I moved to Eldar, and now I'm thinking vanilla marines in the form of Crimson Fists. I like this last idea the most since it allows me to essentially play marines how I'd like to. We'll see though, as I'm going to wait until 5th Edition and the new codex are released (October).

Total number of runs: 80
Total number of miles: 535.85
Total time: 74 hours, 11 minutes, 21 seconds

This tapering nonsense is more difficult than the long running. I'm having a really hard time taking it easy on these runs which is adding more stress to the upcoming marathon day. Over the course of these week I will be running 11 miles total - this is not nearly enough miles to eat up the boundless energy that I have.

I've been trying to make plans in the evenings to occupy my mind. Lisa and I are going shopping after our run tomorrow to find some shirts to wear on race day, on Thursday Steve and I are going to get burgers and watch a Red Sox game after work, and Laura and I might go to a Red Sox game on Friday night. Lately I've sat on the couch at night with so much energy that I almost want to get up and start pacing.

I e-mailed a girl this morning who may have a number that Lisa can use. If that's the case then I will fill out the application Woodrow gave me and we'll both be official runners. If not, we'll continue our plan of being bandits.

I've worked my way through three of the Wardancers. They all have good spots and bad spots but overall I'm happy with how they're coming out. I painted the skin of two more last night but found myself rushing through and didn't do anything else. I've also noticed that the paint has been rubbing off of some of the models, which is a bit disturbing.

I miss climbing. I haven't climbed anything since I was in San Francisco, which was over a month ago.

Total number of runs: 75
Total number of miles: 511.85
Total time: 70 hours, 57 minutes, 31 seconds

Woodrow knows some people and yesterday when I came into work he had a number for the marathon if I wanted it. I don't want to run officially if Lisa can't, so I asked him if he could find a second number; he said he'd take a look.

The taper is pretty interesting. I feel like I'm not running nearly as hard (which I'm not) and it is difficult not to tack on a few miles. This past Saturday I ran 4 miles, which is a distance I haven't run in six weeks.

My parents and sister are going to be in town to see me run which is really exciting. My dad was at every soccer game and track meet that I ever competed in until I graduated high school, but almost never got to see me play ultimate in college. I miss having him there, and even though it is unlikely that he'll actually see me running the marathon, I'm excited to know that he's there cheering me on in spirit.

The other night I build Laura's desk and tonight I'm going to build a dresser for her. I enjoy building furniture and had a blast assembling stuff when I moved into my new place.

Over the weekend I had the good idea to take new pictures of the models I have painted for my Wood Elves (you can see them here). At some point during the evening I put one of my trays full of Dryads on the ground to make space on my desk. The chair I've been sitting in has been broken since I got it and it chose that night to break. When it broke, it dropped me on top of my figures, literally crushing 11 of the 24 Dryads on the tray. I believe I can salvage most (if not all) of them, but it is a bit depressing to see them smashed up and broken after all the work I put into them.

I also started painting a Wardancer and pretty much finished him up last night. The models are gorgeous and I had a ton of fun painting him, but I'm not really happy with how he came out. In general he looks drab and uninteresting, and I know that the way I painted his hair is really letting the model down. I'm going to take a stab at the hair again and probably re-highlight his leather pieces to try to get some brightness on the model.

Total number of runs: 71
Total number of miles: 483.31
Total time: 67 hours, 08 minutes, 14 seconds

Before this is done, I'll have run over 500 miles over the course of more than 3 full days.

This past Sunday, Lisa and I ran 22 miles (check out the route) at an average of 8:30 pace per mile. Around the 16 mile mark my legs started to feel pretty bad, but some gel and water (from some very friendly people who set up aid stations on the course) got me through. We stopped at the top of Heartbreak Hill, but both of use were confident that we could have maintained pace and finished the whole thing. Hot damn! My confidence is through the roof and there are still 3 more weeks to get some miles in.

These last runs are part of our three week taper. I'm supposed to be taking it easy and letting my body recover from the precious 15 weeks of punishment, so come marathon day they have all of the strength and none of the damage. My understanding is that this is very hard to do, considering we've done nothing but ramp up the miles for the past 3.5 months. I think I can do it, and I'm excited to have some extra free time now that the runs are decreasing in distance.

I helped Laura move into her new apartment last night. She doesn't have much in there right now (just a futon and some clothes) but the place has a lot of potential. Over the rest of the week she'll be moving more of her stuff in, and her parents are coming up on Friday to help her finish it off.

Her moving (and subsequent furniture search) has motivated me to try to finish furnishing my room. I've been working on a wobbly table with a stolen hutch for a desk since I arrived, but that solution becomes less and less viable everyday. I would also like another book case / display case for my little men, and I really need to get a real chair since the piece of crap I have now is starting to hurt my back.

I finished painting my Spellsinger, which means I only have two more Glade Guard models to paint. I can't wait to never have to paint those models again. I was excited about the painting on this model after the skin (especially the face!) and lighter green went on, but the dark green and brown didn't turn out as well as I would have liked.

I continue to lose at chess, although recently I've been encouraged because I'm no longer losing so badly.

Over the course of my training I've noticed that often times when I'm done running my stomach will get very upset. The worst instance of this was on Sunday, but it happened yesterday also and I can think of several other times in the past few months as well. I spent some time thinking about it last night, and the only actual cause I could think of was drinking. I can't say about any other times, but Saturday night I went to the Pour House, had a few drinks, and got sick after my run on Sunday. I went out Tuesday night to a fancy dinner, had a few drinks, and got sick after my Wednesday run.

I can see why drinking could cause this, but I know I've drank heavily and run the next day with no problems (my birthday and Friday night come to mind immediately). At least until the marathon, I'm going to cut down on the drinking before runs and see if the stomach problems go away.

Yesterday's run was a really easy 8 miler that Lisa and I did in 1:06:55. I love the fact that 8 miles now constitute a casual run for me. The first long run of this training program was 8 miles, and I struggled through it in 1:28:06. I can now happily run that distance 22 minutes faster with no effort at all, and can blitz it 28 minutes faster and still feel stronger afterwards. I'm not sure that I've ever been in this kind of shape and I'm really curious to know what sort of mile and 5k times I could put out right now.

Total number of runs: 67
Total number of miles: 447.56
Total time: 62 hours, 00 minutes, 12 seconds

I'm nearing the end of the Glade Guard models. I finished the basic 8 of them last night, which leaves me with just two musicians and a Spellsinger left before I never have to paint these things again; I can't wait.

I added some red to the models to break up the boring greens and browns, and I think it helps make the models stand out. My highlighting, while not getting any more technical, is certainly getting faster. I'm glad I can paint to this level at a greater speed, because doing it as slowly as it was going was starting to be a drag.

Only three more to go!

Total number of runs: 66
Total number of miles: 439.56
Total time: 60 hours, 53 minutes, 17 seconds

Running in San Francisco felt like running in jello. The hills were ridiculous and I don't ever want to try it again. The situation wasn't helped by the fact that I had rolled my ankle climbing in Yosemite, so I only ran twice that week.

I arrived home on Saturday, and on Sunday Lisa and I crushed 20 miles; that did wonders for my confidence. Sadly, it did the opposite for my right hamstring. After toughing out Tuesday and Wednesday of this past week, I took Thursday off to rest and came back terrifyingly strong on Saturday (I blew through 8 miles at 7:30 pace) and solid on Sunday. There is some lingering pain and tightness, so I plan to take Tuesday off as well.

My vacation was a pretty good time. Laura and I spent our first night in California sleeping in a tent that we pitched in a parking lot because there was snow on the campground. In the morning we went climbing in Yosemite, where I didn't even top 30 feet before rolling my ankle and ending my outing.

After that adventure, we spend the rest of the week wandering the city. We took a tour of the Haight (a fun commercial district in the city), saw the aquarium and an Asian Art Museum, and spend a day in Stanford looking at the campus and Tim's lab. All and all it was very relaxing and warm, which was what I was looking for. Some photo excerpts can be found below, and more here.

Some trees near our campsite.

El Cap, about 3500 feet up.

Laura cruising through a crack.

Me enjoying the highest point in my Yosemite climbing experience.

Since coming home, I've tried to finish painting my Glade Guard, but the models are so boring and I'm just not interested in them. They're mostly done, but I'm not sure I'll be able to hit the 200 point mark for this month. The monotony of this has left me thinking about finishing the models I have bought (a unit of 7 Wardancers) and putting the rest of the army on hold to work on something else. This same feeling has led me to seriously think about downgrading the size of my Blood Raven army from 1500 to 1000 points. If I do that, I will only have 3 Marines, a Land Speeder, and Dreadnought left to paint. I'd also like to finish the Tau army I have (2 Crisis suits and 5 Firewarriors left).

After that, I'm not sure where I'd like to go with this hobby. Spoony, my primary (and only) opponent, is moving to California in September and once that happens, I won't have anyone to play with anymore. That being said, we don't play much to begin with, so mostly this hobby has been painting for me anyway. Who can say. I have been looking at a Death Guard army and a Blood Angels army recently, but I'd like to finish what I have now before starting anything new.

Laura and I are going on a date tonight to celebrate her getting an apartment and so I can thank her for taking care of me yesterday when my stomach revolted against my body.

I saw Dar this weekend and he asked me to be part of his wedding party. I was a bit surprised but honored. Now I just need to figure out what exactly that means. I sure do feel old.

Total number of runs: 57
Total number of miles: 358.05
Total time: 49 hours, 30 minutes, 15 seconds

I've now spent over 48 hours training for this marathon.

Apparently, 18 miles is a breeze. I ran without Lisa this past Sunday (due to an alcohol induced foot injury) and did really well. The first few miles took about 10 minutes per, but eventually I found a comfortable stride and ran strong through 12 miles. Here, I pulled my new ace: Gu Performance Gel. I took one of these at the 12 mile mark, and another one at 15 miles, and never looked back. There wasn't a surge of energy that I could detect, but despite my rather large pace increase, there wasn't any new fatigue either. These things essentially allowed me to go a lot faster with no consequences - awesome!

Kayleigh came to visit over the weekend and Laura and I entertained her while she was here. I was sad when she left in December so it was nice to have her come visit us. We all tentatively made plans to visit her in the Addirondaks this summer.

I had some very lofty plans to paint 8 Glade Guard before leaving for California on Saturday morning, but they've fallen pretty short. The idea was to paint one color a day (flesh, secondary green, primary green, and brown) over the course of four days, and have 90% of the models done when I left. The flesh and secondary green went on just fine, but Laura and I went climbing last night, and followed that up with some beer at the Behan, so last night was a wash. Tonight is movie night, which means that I won't be able to paint anything else before we leave. Oh well.

EMS had a very large pack on sale for $100, which I bought yesterday to use on this trip. I also bought a dozen carabiners to turn into draws. I'm getting more and more excited about this trip as it gets closer.

Joel is still rocking my socks off in chess (I'm currently 0 - 5, with a 6th loss coming right up). My book arrived in the mail, so some quality reading time on the plane should help my game a bit.

Laura is all better.

Total number of runs: 53
Total number of miles: 322.05
Total time: 44 hours, 18 minutes, 02 seconds

The 17 miles last Sunday were tough. I felt pretty good for the first 75% or so, but eventually the lack of sleep and poor eating from the week before caught up to me and I struggled on the way home. However, I slept well over the weekend and have been eating much better, so the three runs during this week all went very well. Lisa and I are tackling 18 miles this weekend and I'm feeling a lot better about it than I was about the 17 last weekend.

I finished painting my Dryads last week. One of the units I painted to look like birch trees, and I think they came out really well. I have a unit of 10 Glade Guard, a unit of 7 Wardancers, and a Spellsinger assembled and based, but the weather has been brutally cold this past week so they haven't received primer yet.

Brown - I really like the skeleton in this unit.

Birch Trees.

About 850 points of Wood Elves.

I finally got around to working on my fish tank this past week. Through the wonders of the internet I ordered a bunch of silk plants, some driftwood pieces, and black gravel. The results of a few hours of moving plants and stacking gravel to get the wood to sink res

Everything looks a lot more yellow than it really is.

When I get back from California I am going to have Spoony drive me to a fish store so I can buy some neon tetras. My hope is that the black and bright green of the tank will help set off the reds and blues of the fish.

I've been playing a lot of e-mail chess with Joel this week (he's currently 3-0, with a likely 4th victory on the horizon). He's pretty good, although I'm bad enough to not know the difference. However, I'm very interested in learning how to play better. I ordered a book on Joel's recommendation that should arrive next week sometime.

This has not been a stellar week. Laura had some dental work done last Thursday and was put on anti-biotics. On Sunday (maybe?) she developed developed a rash and it became clear that she was allergic to the anti-biotic. We were hoping to tough it out but ended up in the ER on Tuesday morning where we were told that she was just going to have to deal with everything but that eventually she would be ok. I went into work late and left early because I was exhausted. Around midnight we went back to the ER, and stayed there until 6am while the doctors made sure she was still ok. They determined she was and we both went home to sleep. At this point she developed sores in her mouth (either from the reaction or the dental work) and hasn't been able to eat solid food for a few days now. She went into the ER for a third time yesterday, and again they decided that even though she was miserable there wasn't anything they could do.

I haven't slept much since Sunday night and have been worried sick. I know she's going to be fine but it sucks that I can't do anything to make her feel better.

Total number of runs: 48
Total number of miles: 279.05
Total time: 38 hours, 06 minutes, 20 seconds

I've had several good runs over the past two weeks (several of the weekend 7 milers and Wednesday's 8 miler with Lisa) and one bad run (Sunday's 11 miler that I ran alone and with an Ipod). Overall I'm very happy with where my training is and I feel very confident heading into the longer runs.

In the coming weeks Lisa and I will do 17, 18, 13, 20, 12, and 20 before hitting the taper. Even 9 weeks ago when I started this whole thing, runs of that size would have been very daunting. Right now though, I'm really excited to tackle them and I know that I will do them well. This gives me a lot of confidence for the marathon itself, which I wasn't expecting to have.

Last night I did the final details on the last four Dryads, which leaves me with only the basing to finish. I am pretty proud of myself for getting motivated and painting 16 models in two weeks. At this rate I will have this army painted in a few months.

Spoony's friend Matt came to our place this past weekend and the three of us played a round robin tournament at 500 points - Matt beat both of us, and I beat Spoony. My victory over Spoony came because of some good rolling on my part and some bad rolling on his, but I also think my list starts off at an advantage over his due to all of my shooting and his lack of an armour save.

In the first turn against Matt I killed off his unit of fast cavalry, which I thought won me the game right away. However, my inexperience at the game led me to charge a ranked up unit of his infantry with my Glade Riders and Noble, and after a few rounds of combat he had killed most of my army. He had static combat resolution and a good armour save in his favor, and I just didn't have the volume of attacks needed to overcome that - lesson learned.

My Warmachine models arrived, and they're a bitch to assemble. They look fantastic though, and I'm both excited and intimidated to start painting them.