For Whom the Dogs Bark

NICE!!! Love waking up w/ a smile! Your mileage is phenomenal...that alone ensure you have *gone to class* and that BQ is in the bag!

Hmmm painting lines on the road?...may be subliminal message to do the tangents while you * frolic*?! :)

3 weeks of taper? What does your schedule look like? Have you had luck with that schedule before? 3 weeks might be too long to go without some faster paced stuff thrown in. My plan is to drop to 50's week 3, 45 miles week 2 and 30 miles the week of but I won't wind down on intensity until 10 days out. But if you have a plan that works you should stick with it, too late to change anything now. Didn't mean for you to doubt your plan, I am just curious. Good entry on tapering: http://fastrunningblog.com/forum/index.php/topic,9.0.html

Smooth, thanks! Tangents. I knew if I posted my dream on here I would get an interpretation. I will definitely pay attention to those, in fact somebody else warned me about the tangents on this particular course, so you have given me very smart advice.

David, definitely not too late to tweak the taper schedule. My plan may not end up being all that different from yours, definitely want to keep some turnover in there, in fact I am toying with doing a 10K time trial next week in addition to some sprints. And I have a 5K race scheduled the week before the marathon. But after tomorrow I am done running long and hard for a while, if I do it for another week I think I would end up injured, would rather lose a little conditioning than do that. I'll post a taper schedule tomorrow or Sunday, would definitely welcome input on it, as I struggle getting the taper right.

Great - but you are correct in you must take into account risk of injury vs. reward. Something that we do a lot of is Fartleks or pickups. Pretty low impact yet helps with leg turnover. Basically on one of your runs tack it on the last 3 miles or so. Maybe 1 minute on and 1 minute off at easy pace and repeat 10 - 15 times. Make the minute on 10k pace or faster. Throw in some shorter pick ups on other runs, say 20-30 seconds at 5k pace and 40 seconds rest. Again, I think this is a great way to add in some speed safely. On another subject, I have tried the Aussie carbo load plan with pretty good success as have others in my running group. Read about it by following the URL below - you may want to try it before a long run first just to make sure it works for you. Again, at this point you don't want to do anything to drastic that can sabotage your marathon. Better safe than sorry after all the time you have invested in training. http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/carbo-loading-managing-your-glycogen-intake-without-overloading-glucose-65

Hey, I have that exact dream about school sometimes. Mine usually ends with angry people chasing me from the ground as I'm swimming slowly through the sky above them (usually freestyle or breaststroke).

I'm inpressed you even ran 11 miles the day after that fast HM. Nice.

David, thanks, I haven't tried Fartleks before and this is probably a good time to bring that in to the program. Btw, I can't get that pponline website to work, I think it is down. Looks like a great site.

Joe, impressive dream, you must have a great imagination. As long as they don't have weapons you are probably OK?