According to the Chicago Marathon site at this moment, there are 37556:16:9:53 (days, hours, minutes, seconds) until the start of the marathon. In my world. though, the marathon is three weeks from today, and today I ran the longest distance I’ll run in training before the even itself, 20 miles. I can only compare it to the feeling I had after my thirteen-hour round trip climb on Hvannadalshnúkur in Iceland this spring, that feeling of not being able to lift my legs to climb up stairs, not being able to bend in all the places I was able to before this morning. It was a very different run from my previous 16-mile loop two weeks ago, because for no apparent reason, my legs began cramping about halfway through. The weather was great, Aimee had water and encouragement for me at stops along the way, and everything felt good, but I just couldn’t get my legs to work, for whatever reason. For the last five miles or so, I devised a system that allowed me to run, instead of the shuffle/walk I had been doing up to that point. I would run 50 steps, stretch, then 60 steps, stretch, and so on. 150 steps was my limit, but I felt better having come up with a way to get over the cramps instead of giving in and hoping it didn’t happen again. I’ll still try to make sure it doesn’t, but at least I know what to do if they do return. It’s going to be a long week, nearly thirty more miles on tap between tomorrow and Saturday, but it will all pale in comparison to today. I think that’s the point.

In other news, a good weekend for the Yankees, though it started poorly, as they managed fewer points than most baseball teams usually put up.