Saturday's Training -

Pm: 26 miles - 2.35.45

Today was a long day. We woke up early this morning (this inevitably happens whenever I want to sleep in) and I had a good breakfast of cereal with a banana, toast with peanut butter and honey, and a large cup of coffee. After finishing this all up I quickly got ready for Julie and I's engagement photo session that was included in our wedding photo package. We drove out to Mesa and after a quick consultation with the photographer we headed out to Freestone park and got lots of photos taken. This took a little while and after coming back and having another meeting with another photographer, we got back in the car and went back to the house to get ready for the run.

I quickly got ready but wasn't sure what to wear as it was close to 80 degrees outside and I would be sweating a lot. T shirt or no shirt? I went with the shirt so I would get some protection from the sun and so I slathered myself in Body Glide so I would get no chafing. I also put on a lot of sun block because I knew the shirt would come off at some point. I filled up my water bottles with, one with Shotz electrlyte's and the other with flat Coke. I also put some gel's out to try on the run as I have not used them in a long time and felt it was time to try them again. Everything got packed in a bag as Julie would be joining me on the run on her bike. She wasn't quite ready yet so I ran a 4 mile loop on the reservation before I came by her house and met her again. I took some Shotz as soon as I saw her as I was already sweating a lot and knew I would get through

all the fluids I had packed. I had grand idea's of heading out a long the trails at the base of South Mountain but that quickly went out the window as I had to take into consideration the fact that Julie had to be able to ride a bike close by and the trails are rocky and pretty hard to navigate through on a bike. We also could have headed out to the reservation but it was pretty windy and I wasn't looking forward to something I call the St Andrews Affect (When running a track session in St Andrews, you will be running int a strong headwind down the back straight only to be met by a stronger headwind when you hit the home straight! Its very strange but happens all the time there). The Rez was too exposed so we headed through some neighbourhoods and just resigned to the fact that the majority of the run would be on asphalt. It wasn't much of a problem as I need to get my legs used to the pounding. We got through 14 miles of the run with no problems and the fluids were going down pretty easily so I continued the 6 min miles that I had been running from the start of the run. This pace wasn't hard as I was at sea level and aerobically I felt very easy.

Right around this point, the sun went in behind the clouds so I took off my shirt and tossed it to Julie to put in the bag for me. I ran ahead as she tried to wrestle with the bag to put it away and suddenly I heard a crash. I looked behind to find Julie on the ground with the bike all tangled up between her legs. I guess she had picked up speed (we were on a downhill) and realised she was about to go into the back of me and yanked the breaks and headed straight over the handlebars. She had grazed her knee and slammed her hands on the ground and got a bunch of stingy cuts on her hands. She was tearing up and I was just trying to get her to take some deep breaths as she was in a little bit of shock. All she was saying was "I'm sorry i've ruined your run". This is a typical Fisher reaction, always thinking of others first so I told her to stop worrying about me and we grabbed her water bottle and cleaned her cuts up. She got

right back on the bike and followed me through a rough trail as we headed over to Pecos Road for the last part of the run. Once we got onto the road (Its a long straight road thats about 5 miles long) I switched to using the flat Coke and what a surprise I got. I haven't had Coke in years and it tasted amazing at this point in the run. My training partners have all used it on their runs and Liz McColgan told me she would use it towards the end of her marathons for the caffeine so I figured it would be a good idea to try it. I also gulped down a gel pack which went down smoother than I thought it would. I think I will stick to just fluids during the marathon as its a bit fiddly trying to open the gel pack with a bottle in one hand. The next few miles were pretty boring but I still had to concentrate as we were out on the rez at this point and the wind was whipping up in my face. I actually had to stop at around 22 miles to quickly stretch out my achilles as it was tightening up a bit but I quickly got back onto the run and did a couple of loops of Pecos Park before we headed back to Julie's house to finish up. Julie had called ahead to get her dad to open up the side gate so I could jump straight into their pool as my feet were pretty hot by this point. Now was the hard part - we finished the run at 4.40pm and had to be ready, changed and at church by 5pm. We got there 5 mins late after I chugged down a bunch of fluids and ate a balance bar. I also checked my weight and the great thing was I didn't lose any weight on the run. This meant that I had hydrated well and would help a lot with my recovery from the run.

After we got out of church, Julie and I picked up her big brother Mike and we headed to My Big Fat Greek Restaurant and filled up on some great grub. Needless to say I passed out when we got back to the house and watched some mind numbing tv programs!