The Philly Distance Run was great! What a fabulous experience. The TMF booth prior to the race was great. It was really nice to run with other team members. I usually run by myself, so that was a change of pace! I ran about 2/3 of the race with other team members. It was nice to run and talk with others that shared the same goal as me. I found that during the 1/2 marathon that other runners would ask me about the Tug McGraw Foundation. So even during the run, we were able to talk about the important work that the Foundation does. The support of the TMF volunteers while we were running was incredible. You can really spot the red shirts and signs immediately! The red STANDS out!!! as opposed to the green that we wore in NYC in 2007. Love that red! It was a lot of fun! David and I had a great weekend. I was sorry to see it end!

On Thursday, I had a great 18 mile run! I used power gels for the first time. What was the best part was the recovery time was incredibly quick! I felt great running. I felt like Forest Gump, like I could keep on running! I will never do a long run without the gels again. I also did a harder 18 mile that I would normally do. My 5.2 mile run has a lot of hills. So what I did was 3 5.2 mile runs and 1 3.2 mile run. I ran up Main Street 4 times! I remembered from NY last year that those hills at the end were killing me, but on Thursday, I felt great! I'm actually looking forward to the 20 mile this week. Next week, I'll do 2 15 mile runs and the week after another 20 - 23 mile run. Then I'll start my taper. I have my last 20/23 mile run scheduled for 2 weeks before Nov 2nd. The 2 weeks before the marathon, I'll be running 13-15 mile runs. It will be strange to cut down on the long runs.

Run safe and remember all the people that we run for!