I can remember when I use to go out for a 3 or 4 mile run and think "Geez, this is going to be rough"... and now, 13 weeks into marathon training, and it's like I think to myself, it's only 8 or 9 miles for a Thursday morning run, no biggie. It's so weird how my body has adapted to the longer mileage and how going out for a 9 mile run at 5:30 am before work feels like just another run!

It's that strong feeling that makes me confident that I can finish 26.2 miles. It's going to be the biggest mental challenge of my entire life so far...but I have come too far and put in way too much time to not finish, so mentally, I think that determination will get me through! :)

This week we bumped the mileage on Thursdays to 9 miles. 4 miles for Tuesday, 9 for Thursday, and 18 for Saturday... going into this week, it was hard to wrap my mind around 18 miles...and how much ground that would cover. Jeremy and I decided that we wanted to go somewhere new or just out of Belton/Raymore to run our 18 miles. I put him in charge of charting out a course for us down by the Ward Parkway/State Line area. We started at the same place we did for the "Rock the Parkway" half marathon and headed out! The course was a very scenic one! Lots of gorgeous flowers in the perfectly manicured lawns off the mansions off of Ward Parkway. We did a loop around the gorgeous Loose Park on the soft running trail, and then headed towards State Line. The last 5 miles or so were a little hilly, but not bad at all. The course was beautiful and while 18 miles is A LOT of ground to cover, I am so glad we did it in a different area! We ended up finishing in 2 hours 43 minutes, a 9:05 minute mile pace. We were VERY happy with that!

I knew going into this week that the 18 mile run would be my last in these running shoes. My usual time in shoes are about 3 months- but with the mileage we'd been doing, I knew it was way past time. Around mile 2 of the run, I started feeling my Achilles tendon pretty good on my right side and after the run, it was SO SORE! Luckily, with the great advice from my running partner, :) I iced it really good and wore my new running shoes for support and later that night felt good as new!

Can't wait to break in the new shoes next week and look forward to that last 4 weeks of training!