Been a little too long...

20 miles on Saturday actually went very well.

At the end, I wasn't anywhere near as trashed as I was at the end of that hilly 18 miles three weeks ago. In fact, I reckon that I could've run another 6.2 miles...

Running on the Towpath Trail after running on pavement for weeks can be likened to driving a Mercedes or Lexus after living your life in a Chevy Cobalt. Cinders are wonderful to run on. They're so plush... this, combined with the excellent cushioning in my Cumulus', makes for a comfortable 20 miles of cruising. I'd also misremembered the Towpath Trail as being uncomfortably sunny. This couldn't be further from the truth. The shade/sun ratio is probably a little over 50/50 in favor of shade. Most of the trail, in fact, is wooded.

Definitely running here again.

Electrolyte chew strategy: This run, I tried to chew one every two miles, and down the rest of the package at the very end.

Bloks!!!!!

This worked pretty well. I'll probably stick to it for the marathon.

The next three weeks are all taper. i.e. that 20 mile run was the longest I'll run before the marathon. The program is laid out so that my peak milage (last week's) is cut by 25%, 50%, and then 75% in coming weeks. Today is a 5 miler, tomorrow 8 miler... and I don't know about the rest of the week. But next week is much less, and then the week of the marathon I should be running only as many miles as during the first week of training.