Miles to go...

Robert Frost wrote about having miles to go before he slept. In 3 weeks I'll be at the New River Marathon running another 13.1 miler. I've been having stomach problems for 3 days and unable to keep up my running schedule. I got to thinking this morning how many miles go into the preparation for a marathon run. I guestimate I've run over 350 miles this year in training. Add to that a lot of cycling miles. Probably triple that. Then consider my weight loss regimen that has been a restriction of around 1000 calories per day. So I'm pretty tired now. And I have a lot more training miles to go. After this half marathon, I have a full marathon to train for. Then the last training stretch finishes with a Grand Full Marathon where I'll do my best to finish with a good time. So those weeks of training will be the hardest yet. And once I've done all that? I think I might be finished with Marathon running.