So the last couple weeks were fairly busy for me. I had the last couple weeks of running before my marathon, my marathon, the FTOPS and I went up to my cottage. The low point of the last few weeks was when I went out for my longest run to date (32km) I started to get light headed after about 20km and had to only do 2 of my 3 loops. This was the "most important" run before the marathon and it really shattered my confidence. I kind of see-sawed between whether I should even do the marathon, what my goal time should be etc etc. I more or less decided that I'd run it if the whether looked reasonable and if it was a scorching day probably either pass, or just run 1/2 or something.

I also went up to my cottage for a couple days and the whether was miserable so I probably did 1 or 2 less short runs than I optimally should have. The last couple weeks I've also had some decent sweats in online tournies for the FTOPS. On the 9th, I had one of my most mediocre Sundays in a while, and on the 11th I had possibly my most promising tourney session ever(not just in the sense of winning tons of money, but just in running good across the big and small tournies). I played 27 tournies and cashed 9 with 2 or 3 bubbles and won a 100 FO, got 3rd in a 50 FO, 11th in a 100 FO, 12th in the triple shootout FTOPS, and 9th in a pretty big 109r. It was pretty disappointing to be HU in round 2 of the TSO with the chiplead and be like 2nd/11 and then finish the day like this. It was obviously a pretty successful day anyways, but it was pretty crazy how many tournaments were going well that day.

I played 2 other days of FTOPS, the Wednesday night with the 300r and despite getting great stacks in the 300r and the 1k on Cereus things came crashing down to be a pretty lame day, I also played this Saturday(stopped regging pretty early since I had to wake up at 7am for the marathon and wanted to sleep at like 930 or something). Sure enough I ended up getting deep in the 1 time consuming tourney of the day and made day 2 of the 2500 FTOPS. It was a pretty good day for the most part before running KK into AA on the bubble and managing to squeak into the money before running up a stack to about 1/2 of average, and putting me in 56th/66. I didn't get to bed until a little after midnight but felt really good when I woke up in the morning.

I drank some water, had a power bar, checked the weather(was supposed to be warm but not ridiciulous) but bandages on my nipples so they didn't bleed this time and I was ready to go. I went to pick up Will and we were both pretty excited for the run. He had run our 32k run in 2:59 and was going for about 4:00, I was more or less just going to finish after my fail at the 32k run but was hoping for about 4:30.

The race started just after 7:30am and the temperature was about 16(61f) and there would be water stations at every 3rd kilometer. There were just over 40 runners, most of whom had run 120k in the last week, and soon enough the race had started. One difficult part about this run was that its very tempting to set your pace based on the pace of the person in front of you(ie. keep a similar distance between you). In most races you can get into a group of people running a similar pace and go by that, but here if one person is speeding up or slowing down, its tough to not mimic them. We started out the race fairly quick and it was pretty clear Will would end up running quicker than me so after about 15 minutes I told him to feel free to run ahead. I kept a really consistent(but fairly quick pace) for a while. The first 3k took 15:34, next 3k took 16:45, then 16:59, then 16:29, 16:49, 16:47, 16:24, and I was 1/2 way in 1:56:01, the course was pretty fairly up and down and had a lot of uphills for a couple kilometers(about 15.5km to 17.5k) and . I have no idea whether I should have gone slower in hindsight but I had felt no cramps(usually I always feel a bit of a cramp after ~12k or so), no soreness and although it was heating up quite a bit(was up to close to 30) I had drank plenty of water and I was feeling good enough that I felt like I would finish this in 4:05 easily, possibly 4:00 if things kept going so well. The next 3k took 16:47, then 25k felt great, 26k and I was feeling spectacular and beginning to realize I'm going to finish this thing and probably in a pretty respectable time.

By the time I was done 27km I was tempted to stop the race. I have no idea what happened, err I know what happened, but I can't believe it was so suddenly. The day was now about 33 and felt like 38 which is about the hottest temperature we've had all summer and handsdown the fastest I had run in. Going 3km without water in this environment was really tough and my body was beginning to feel super drained. I am normally hot in temperatures most people find normal, and in hot temperatures I really don't do well. I finished KM's 24-27 in 17:01 but was pretty sure the fast pace was over. For the next few km I started run/walking(which pretty much everyone else around my pace was doing as well) where I'd walk 2-3 minutes, jog the rest of the kilometer(which I later switched to walking uphills and jogging the flat/downhill sections to save energy) and I was really not excited about having to do this for 15km. The first couple kilometers of this went quite well, I felt as if I was really not wasting much energy and could definitely finish in a respectable time still. The next 3km took 20:12, then there were no energy gels at the 30km station(every station had Water, Gatorade, Sponges, and Energy packets which I intended to take at kilometers 6,12,18,24,30,36). Missing one of these would not be too detrimental since in my training I'd only have them about every 8-9km and here I was taking them every 6.

The next 3km felt pretty similar, and took 21:14, and again the station had no energy gels. I was pretty unexcited at the thought of running the rest of the race without these. At this point when going through a water station instead of getting my usual cup or two of water, I was getting a bottle of water, cup of gatorade and a sponge at every station. The next 3km were a similar pace of 21:20 and left me thinking I'd finish the race in just under 4:15 assuming things didn't get any better or worse. I got a gel here and prepared myself for the few kilometers of uphill that I faced. My plan of walking the uphills really would result in these being slow kilometers since they were almost all uphill with the last couple kilometers being downhills or flat. I walked probably 1.5-2km of the next 3km(for the previous 9km I had probably walked about the same distance) and took 25:28, but was feeling very refreshed and ready to run the majority of the last 3km. I had run about 1/2 a kilometer, was feeling great before I stepped and felt the worst charlie horse of my life in my right leg. The next step the same thing. I then realized I was not going to be smiling as I crossed the finish line. I couldn't run at all and even walking was pretty painful, so I had to walk the last 3km. It was pretty disappointing to have been out there trying my best for 4 hours in the hottest temperature I've run in and then have this affect my run. I ended up taking just under 30 minutes of nearly constant cursing for the last 3.2km and then I was done in 4:27:27. Shortly after finishing I started to feel pretty happy and ignore the pain in my legs and I have no idea what my future running goals will be.

I think if I run a marathon again I'd choose it in the early spring or late fall so that I could put up a more reasonable time. I'd also want to run one of the bigger marathons where you have people everywhere and spectator support(the 1/2 marathon I ran in Duluth had such a ridiculously nice/supportive environment) as well as more water stations. At one point during the marathon Will(who finished in 3:48) went an hour without seeing another runner, and I never could see more than 1-2 people ahead of me. I think I'll probably do more middle distance running and maybe train to run a fastish 5-10k this fall and a quick 1/2 marathon in the spring or something like that. 4.5 hours was a long time to be running and I didn't really put much thought into the music I put on my ipod which proved frustrating.

Alright, enough complaining, it was actually a pretty good result and I have no reason to be ashamed(if my first half took 2:15 and 2nd took 2:12, I would be so happy right now), but I had less than 2 hours to get home, get lunch, get non-disgusting and get 1st place in the 2500 FTOPS to make the day truly awesome. The day started good with me winning the blinds a few times, caling a raise with 77 and having a 3 way pot and stacking AJ after the AJ3 flop was checked around and I turned a 7 to get above average. I then kept cardracking and winning small pots and then eliminated Brandon Adams and at first break I had turned 33k into 151k and was 11/47.

Shorly after break I 3barreled californication- who just called bvb pre with AT, called the K85hh board, A turn and then tank called my 1/3 pot bet on the K river. No idea whether he was legitimately considering folding, but people seem to really believe my small river bets.

A few hands later, I open 88, he calls in position, a loose shortstack shoves 18 or 20BB from the SB, I reshove 50BB with 88, californication- calls AKs, shorty has AQ and I lose a big flip to be out like 40th.

Since then not much has happened, I've been taking it pretty easy in terms of physical activity since I don't really want to injure myself or anything. I'm going to Turning Stone this weekend, then visiting Stevejpa in Kingston then going to my girlfriends cottage, then going to Cannes/Barcelona to get my fall poker started, so I doubt I'll be playing much online but I'll try to keep my blog updated.

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