18 miles this morning. At this point, I could theoretically run the full marathon; while American training programs usually go up to about 20 miles, Europeans usually stop at 30k, or about 18.5 miles. I can't honestly say I feel ready for the whole distance, but I need to get my mind there in a hurry; I've only got a month and a half before my shoes will be on the streets of Chicago!

Speaking of people whose shoes will be on those streets:
Sammy Wanjiru - winner Chicago and London 2009; 2008 Olympic gold; US, UK, and olympic records
Tsegaye Kebede - winner London 2010 and Fukuoka 2009
Robert Kiprono Cheruiyot - winner Boston 2010; course record
Vincent Kipruto - winner Paris 2009; 3rd Chicago 2009

In what other sport do amateurs get to share the field with the professional athletes? I'm very excited for this event!

Tonight, I ran 17 miles. It wasn't easy, of course, and I'll be a little stiff tomorrow. But, I'm very encouraged - my training peaks at 20 miles, and I'm only 3 miles away from that. To be honest, if I absolutely had to run 20 tonight, I probably could have. 26.2 still seems daunting, but I'm beginning to believe I might get there.

70 days until the Chicago Marathon. Sometimes I get discouraged about my running; with all the musical training I'm doing, I really don't have a whole lot of extra energy to push through a very ambitious running schedule. I'm doing enough to get myself across the finish line, but not much more. I've got my eyes on the prize, though, and my priorities have to be focused on my career goals. Despite this, I can't say my training is going poorly. Last week I broke through the half marathon barrier. For the first time, I ran more than 13.1 miles, and while it definitely is a challenge, it feels good to once again get out there every week and push myself farther than I've ever run before. Even though I've missed more runs than I should have, I managed to log a hundred miles in July, and my weekly mileage is sitting pretty steadily where I peaked for both of my half marathons. Basically, I've tuned my body to be pretty comfortable with a half marathon; it's time to move on and tackle 26.2 miles.

Private Entry

It's been quite a few eventful weekends in a row! This weekend started off with a trip to the Worthington Farmer's Market. This is the largest farmer's market in the Columbus area, and we had heard great things about it. We wanted to go see for ourselves, and we were not disappointed. There were twice as many vendors as I've seen at the North Market farmer's market, and most were offering free samples of their products. All the restaurants in Old Worthington were open for breakfast, but I felt no need to supplement what I could find at the farmers' stalls! Strawberries are just starting to come into season, and beautiful asparagus was everywhere. There was lots of local cheese and eggs, and several vendors had local free-range meat. It was difficult, but we managed to leave without breaking our budget.

Then, it was time for a little shopping; I visited the Columbus Running Store in Westerville and got a new pair of shoes. My old pair had over 620 miles on them, which is close to double their intended lifespan. I also finally invested in tech socks; I've been running in cotton the entire time, which is a known hazard. After the blisters I got at the Flying Pig, I decided it was finally time. So, my footwear situation is significantly better than it was; I did a very slow 7 miles to start breaking them in.

Saturday night, we met up with Andy and Heather Scheurer and some other friends for dinner. We ate at Lucé Enoteca in Powell. It has gotten some good reviews, and our friends had previously had a good experience there. This time, however, no one was pleased with their food. The soups and salads were ok, but everything else was a disappointment. We ordered the "large" cheese plate for the table, and while the cheeses were pretty good, there was about an ounce and a half of each selection to share between 5 people. The platter was large, and there was an abundance of grapes and pecans on it, but it's hard to imagine that they increased the cheese portion much beyond the "small" plate. All of the entrees were trying to play with sweet flavors in savory food. I've seen this concept work before, for instance in chef Graham Bowles's food. Here, though, it was just an abject failure. It takes very careful balancing to pull something like that off, and the kitchen at Lucé was not successful.

Today, we took a trip to Dayton to see my brother play with the Miami Valley Symphony Orchestra and have dinner with him and our parents. It was very refreshing to see a group of musicians who were all there because they wanted to be, regardless of how much they were (or weren't) getting paid. The program included some very enjoyable pieces, including Brahms's Academic Festival Overture and the finales from Franck's Symphony in D Minor and Dvorák's "New World" Symphony. The orchestra did a great job of keeping the energy level up throughout the concert.