Day 235.

After two weeks of being gone for work-related training, I finally have my husband back to stay, for a while anyway.  While he was gone, two of our kids that have birthdays within a month of each other (Oct./Nov.), received bikes from some very generous family members as birthday presents.  Last night when Chris came home, he put their new bikes together, and this morning the kids are chomping at the bit to go to the park and ride them.  First, though, we have to go to Cub Scouts, then we have to see if the rain has stopped before going to the park.

In the meantime, today is scheduled as a rest/cross training day for me.  I am going to be doing a 20 mile long run tomorrow, and so I've decided to take it pretty easy today, maybe walking at the park when my kids ride their bikes will be the only official exercise I get.  I've still been dealing with some (very annoying) GI issues this week.  I'm not sure if I've been stricken with a bug of some sort, or if my body is rebelling against all the running, or if it's something I'm ingesting, or just plain nervous stomach.  I've tried to narrow down any possible culprits in my diet, but haven't figured it out.  Today my plan is to keep my food very mild: protein smoothies, chicken noodle soup, things like that.  I'm also going to make sure I'm drinking water all day.  I've read that some people get these types of problems as they get dehydrated on long runs.  Hopefully tomorrow's run will be better than last week's.  I would feel so much better going into the marathon knowing I've completed these last two long runs (20 tomorrow, 22 in two weeks), successfully.  And by successfully, I mean being able to do the entire mileage without any breaks, aside from maybe some walking and refueling breaks.  We shall see...