The thing that most runners fear the most: injury. I had a sore set of muscles in my left shin, close to my knee, that didn't go away from one run to the other. It usually got better during the run, disappearing at around the third mile, and then later, at around the sixth mile. Then I ran 7 miles last Tuesday, and the pain stayed with me for the whole run, and it got to point that I couldn't maintain correct form at the beginning, because of the severe pain.

I had a rest day on Wednesday, but the pain didn't really seem to get better by Thursday, so I reluctantly admitted that I was injured. I skipped the rest of last week, finishing the week with an appalling 11 miles.

Man, did it feel great to run 6 miles this morning! I got up at 5am, so I could finish my hour long run before my daughter was about to go to school at 7am. I hate to get up early, but now I feel like the drug addict who got his fix.

I decided to make some changes in the training plan. I keep the paces, but I reduced the length of each run by about 10%. This way I will peak at about 45 miles, which is not much more than last healthy week (43 miles). I only have two weeks of hard training left before the taper sets in, and I will do it with virtually no increase in mileage. My longest run will be another 20-miler, instead of 22. I did a 20 mile run last weekend, during which I got dehydrated, and it was *miserable*. (I suffered for the last 5 miles and I had to walk a good portion at the end. It may have contributed to my injury.)

It is clear that I have to forget about any goal less than 4 hours. I'll just shoot for 4 hours. In fact, now I see that I probably started marathon training a little early. I would have largely benefited from building a more solid base in fall, and then prepare for a spring, and even a 2010 fall marathon. But that's too late, I'm running Kiawah in a month, and I'm not backing off now. Most of the training is already in.

After that I already have a plan of running the "Save the Light 5K" in February, and I will try to win my age group with a time less than 21 minutes. After that I'll spend some more time on 5K races, trying to get under 20 minutes eventually, and then, I will get back to longer distances.