HALLELUJAH!!!!!!!

I am borrowing the "Hallelujah Chorus" from Handel to describe the current feeling flowing through every ounce of my core. I HAVE FINISHED THE LAST LONG RUN! "Tra La La Boom De Yah-Tra La La Boom De Yah! OVER FINISHED THE END! What a relief! The last 22 miler was today beginning at 5 AM in a THICK fog. It was sort of like running in pea soup-up hill. You could not see 20 feet down the road and therefore the drivers could not see us-even with my reflective vest on. This meant lots of jumping curbs to get out of the road and the oncoming traffic. Not the best of circumstances to run in, but since this is Christmas weekend, we had little choice. Now comes the taper. For the next two weeks we slowly begin decreasing the distance of our runs finishing with the final week before the marathon having short runs only. We are letting our legs recover from all of the pounding now that we know we can go at least 22. That last 4 miles-well- WE WILL SEE! In the last marathon, I hit the wall at mile 23 and the last 3 miles were at a walk for almost all of it. I just had nothing left to give. When your head tells your leg to lift your foot and nothing happens-that is true fatigue. For now I am satisfied with being past the real work and satisfied with knowing that we can now begin to back off. The marathon-well as one of my heroes said, "I'll think about that tomorrow."

We are picking up the Jennings family this afternoon at the airport in Shreveport. Camille has already requested to stop for Mexican food for supper. There seems to be a shortage of the highly seasoned and tasty food we have grown to expect in the South in Erie. We are excited about the entire clan being here and looking forward to a wonderful Christmas.

Hopefully I will have time to blog or at least post pictures. You will probably be to busy to read it anyway. ENJOY YOUR CHRISTMAS, FRIENDS!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL!