Weeks 6-4 to go

• I haven't posted in awhile due to heavy travel/work/family/lazy schedule. I've kept up my pretty regular training runs of 2-3 runs of around 5 miles during the week and one long run on the week end. 
• My long runs after my half marathon have been 14, 15, and 16 miles. I going to probably end up not 'correctly' tapering off into the marathon 3 weeks to go to reach my 20 mile goal mark of running before the marathon. Next week I will do 17.5 then 20 the following week. That's about 10% increase a week so it is attainable. 
• A couple of comments I discovered on these longer runs I have been doing after my half marathon. 

1. Racing the half marathon well gave me a nice mental boost as to just running the marathon itself and it was awesome they had water every few miles available in cups for me!
2. Hydration is something I need to improve on. I did a test of weighing yourself before and after a run, I did so on my 16 miler this week. I dropped 5 pounds on the run. I talked to my marathon running counterpart and he said I need to get a hydration belt or something. I had been stopping at 2-3 water fountains during my long runs, but I'm realizing that's not cutting it. I am going to experiment with a Camel Pak I have and a water bottle in my hand on shorter runs first to see what I like best.  
3. Chaffing has become a real pain after the runs. I have been using a silicone roll on mostly but recently tried the classic body glide stick. Either way I think I'm going to have to give in and use band-aids on my nipples. I looked like Andy from The Office when I was done running.