It was quite unseasonable today for the 3rd day of October in the Northeast .. seems the humidity has set in again. It was nice though to get out early and enjoy a 14-miler, even though it was mostly hills. I decided to cut back from 20 or 22 as I think it serves no real value right now except for making me more tired than my legs already are after 22 weeks of training so far. Todays run will be my longest until the Baltimore Marathon next Saturday morning…. i’m getting excited.

I wrote the other day about how my mp3 devices were all dead, well, I have yet another casualty, my running watch. I usually use an inexpensive Timex Ironman Triathlon watch which I usually pickup for like $30-$40 .. and although this one was only about 9 months old, the battery seemed to have been fading on it. The display just wasn’t bright enough anymore, I couldn’t see it although I know if I held it at the right direction, I could see the time. Unfortunately, that won’t work to help me through the marathon next weekend.

So in the effort of being cost conscious, I thought i’d just get a new battery and replace it myself, how hard could it be? Well, I found out.. pretty hard. I unscrewed the back of the watch, pulled out the ‘guts’ of it, hacked at getting the red cover off the top of the battery, replaced it, reset it the way it told me to … and viola, it worked. or did it?

It seems that although the time is showing and keeping on the front of the watch, none of the buttons work now. I pulled the whole thing apart again, changed the battery, reset it (they call it shorting it out), put it together, same result.. About 30 minutes later, I was still frustrated, it didn’t work and decided to abandon the effort and just buy a new one. So much for being cost conscious… If anybody ever did this before and has the answer as to how the watch could be working, but the buttons don’t, contact me, i’d love to know (just out natural curiosity) what I did wrong..

Getting back to my run now .. I decided to hit my normal hilly 10 miler that I do on Tuesdays, but add another 4 miles of hills to it. Overall I was able to keep that 9 minute pace across the whole course, which I was happy with even though it was quite warm out. I’ve looked ahead at the weather for next weekend in Baltimore, and it appears that there is a chance of rain on Saturday, i’m glad I prepared for anything. I certainly hope that it doesn’t rain, but I have no control over that, so why be bothered by it.

I do feel more confident this time going into the taper week, just because I know i’ve been eating better and getting quality out of my workouts, instead of just getting ‘alot of miles’. My change in attitude is helping also, in that I know i’m going to PR and I think i’ve selected a pace I can actually keep to, instead of shooting for a pace that will only hurt me. I read back to when I ran Steamtown last year, and had a great run and wrote some welcome advice to others (and to myself). Train for a faster pace than you intend to run .. hmm, I think i’ve done that. I do think I may scale my expected pace back to like a 9:05 or 9:10 even..

So now I struggle with the taper and the reduction in miles, which I think i’m okay with. I’ve started looking ahead to Philly on November 22nd .. I mapped out the course in gmap-pedometer to get a feel for the hills and all and it doesn’t look too bad… I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I have to keep it in my thoughts somehow…

Well off to rest…