Kelly Clarkson!!

• Wednesday - 6 miles at 9:43 pace
• Thursday - 8 miles at 9:05 pace
• Saturday - 13.1 (half marathon) at 8:49 pace. 
• Tuesday 3.7 miles at a way slow pace. Don't know what happened, but I felt awful during this run.

Saturday's pre-Christmas 13.1 mile run was astonishing.  I set out to run at about a 9:40 pace, but everything felt great and I ended up going faster and faster over hill after hill and busted out a sweet time.  I was feeling invincible and my legs were like steel bands, which makes me a bit nervous because it isn't good to taunt the marathon gods by say, or thinking, that you are going to easily come in under the goal of 4 hours.  And I think they reminded me today.  Holy cow!  Today was hands down the worst run I've had while preparing for this marathon.  It was awful.  I planned on doing 7 and did half that. Nuff said. I hope tomorrow is better because I need to squeeze in a speed workout.

On another note, let's dive into a subject seldom discussed, but is something that all long distance runners fight...chaffing.  Many runners have a story that makes them wince when they talk about stepping into the shower after a long run and the letting out screams of pain as the water hits a spot that got rubbed a little too much. owwwwwwwwwwwWwWWWWwwwwWWWWWWwww!!!!

As a result, through trial and error most marathoners have Vaseline or Body Glide (cocoa butter), as well as band aids strategically place all over their bodies.  When I did 19 miles last week, I forgot to address my...chest.  More specifically, I forgot the more sensitive part of my chest and paid a heavy price.  This past week, shirts have been uncomfortable to wear, sheets seem to be made out of sandpaper, towels look menacing, etc.  So this weekend I decided to put band aids over those "spots", which worked well, HOWEVER, I had to take the band aids off after the run and ended up waxing my chest.  OOOOOoooWWWwwwWWWwwwWWwWW!  I felt like Steve Carell in The 40 Year Old Virgin

Now that I'm all manscaped (I'll let you google it if you don't know what it means), I'm thinking all I need is a fake tan and I can try out for the next season of Jersey Shore. 

Another painful lesson learned on the road to the marathon.

Help me send my marathon finisher medal to a person who is currently fighting cancer by clicking on this link: http://pages.teamintraining.org/dm/pfchangs12/mnortonnpu