Summer is here, and 140 days until Columbus!

MIT, from Fleet Feet's Facebook page. 

I'm back! Did my first summer/fall training run with MIT this morning and it felt so great to be out there pounding the pavement in the sunshine with the 10:30s.

Who are huge this season, by the way! There are so many of us, it's fantastic! 

And the "long run"... a whopping 6 miles! Remember when I said this? Splits today were: 10:31, 10:14, 10:01, 10:10, 10:26, 9:57. 

Yea, yea, yea, I guess I remember saying this too :)

It's all relative. 

My alarm was buzzing at 6 a.m. and I was up and ready. I made a bagel and burned a CD for the ride since the iPod is still MIA. Getting ready to run in the summer is so much easier -- shorts, tech shirt, garmin, hydration, good to go! (continued)

Hitting the big 2-0... Now, I feel better

Today, I got up at 4:30 a.m. and ran 20 miles. Mentally I'm feeling great, race day is approaching very quickly and getting past 20 was a huge confidence-boost for the 26.2. Physically, my legs feel pretty much like you'd expect them to feel after running 20 miles.

This week was also my first 40-mile week.

The Cleveland Marathon is now 35 days away. May 15. Just over a month from now.

Most of the full marathoners were going early so I sucked it up, woke up at 4:30, and was at Thomas Worthington at 6. The first 9 miles were very peaceful, we ran on the Olentangy Trail to the gazebo, up through Worthington Hills and back to the school. Worthington Hill wasn't that bad the first time. The fatigue started to hit as we went up the hill to the school.

We met up with the full 10:30 MIT crew at 8 back at the school and headed out again. Things were starting to get sore, but I was distracted for the next three miles because the whole group was with us and they, just starting out, had a lot of energy.  (continued)