New shoes, pitch black and 83 miles ahead

I started off this long weekend with purchasing some much-needed, new running shoes. I was wearing the pair that I'd purchased in May. They still look new on the top but the bottoms look like someone sliced half the tread off with a machete. And when I wear them it feels like I'm standing on a dome with the insides of my feet curving upward. They're garbage now. I never went through a pair that quickly but I realized that I've run about 800 miles since May... so there you go. We then went to Liz' dad's in the Pocono Mountains for Labor Day weekend. The hills up there are pretty intense - 2 and 3 mile steep inclines, lots of downhill running with rolling hills. I ran 38 miles over the past 3 days to break in the new shoes - 5 miles Saturday, 18 miles Sunday and 15 miles today. I kept close to a ten minute pace the whole way through. I don't know what I'm going to do when the race is over. I've worked so long and hard to achieve this level of ability and to just let it go seems to be a waste. I mean yesterday's 18 mile run was like nothing. I can remember 2 to 3 mile runs that felt much harder. Sometimes I think about it and it kind of blows my mind. When I was in the store buying the shoes another customer, a woman, was also buying shoes and she was asking all kinds of questions because she was training for a marathon. She said, "I ran 12 miles last weekend and I'm running 13 this weekend." I'm not even bragging here and I know that's a lot of running for most people... it just sounds like peanuts to me at this point. I also bought a Camelback hydration back pack. WOW! Should've bought that a lot sooner. It holds 100 oz of fluid and sits comfortably on my back with a nicely designed hose for easy intake. Until now I've been running holding water bottles (which I was used to). The pack just frees up my arms and feels nicer. Because of Liz' running schedule (she's training for the Philly marathon in November), I've had to make some adjustments with my schedule so I did my back to back long runs today (a Monday) and yesterday. She ran 18 miles on Saturday which is why I only ran 5. She also ran first and didn't get back until 11:30am and I really hate missing time with my kids so I only went out for 50 minutes. I try to get up and run before the kids wake up. So like today, for example Steve and I were out the door at 5:30am. The days are definitely getting shorter because it was pitch black when we set out. The house is back in the woods and we couldn't see anything as we were leaving the property. There was just a touch of light when we hit the road but I remember mentioning to Steve that I couldn't tell if the road was inclining or declining in front of us which was a completely new experience for me. Steve, who's an ex-marine said that the setting reminded him of boot camp. Next weekend will be my first attempt at a 50 mile weekend. So this week will be an 83 mile week when all is said and done (the most miles in one week in my entire schedule). We'll have to see how I feel mid-week. If I'm sore or fatigued I'd rather drop some mileage off the two 9 mile runs that I have planned on Wednesday and Thursday than skimp on my 50 mile weekend (20 miles Saturday and 30 miles Sunday)... I will close this entry by saying I don't regret my decision to run this race one bit and that the training alone has caused a transformation in me. I really believe that I can attain whatever it is in life that I set out to do regardless of the level of difficulty. And that, as Stanley would say, is beautiful.