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.

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.