Training runs complete!

Today was my last training run; 8 miles.  Rather than do my normal course of making it a loop to end at my apartment, I had it end on Park Avenue and Broadway because there is a big fountain with lots of water spraying toward the center.  As I past this on previous runs, I always wanted to run through it to cool down but as it was normally about half way and I didn't want to run over 8 miles in wet shoes, I never did.  Today, in celebration for the training runs being over, I jumped into the fountain and walked around to cool down.  It was awesome.  Now a quick look back of my 6.5 months of training. 

I’ve come across a lot of adventures during my runs.  I’ve had old people stick their cane in my path, people drop suitcases causing me to jump over and pull my groin with about 8 miles left, I’ve ran through shin splints, massive tightness/pain in my calf, nagging knee and arch pain.  I’ve even ran drunk to prepare me for running on tired or not-100% legs.  I think I will need this for the marathon, as I don’t expect to feel 100% throughout.  I’ve had four people say they would run with me, none did.  I’ve been cheered on by Greeks, Asians, and blacks, one who just happened to be fluent in Greek.  I’ve been heckled by little kids and a black guy telling me his girlfriend runs faster than me.  I’ve received both praise and condemnation for the Lebron jersey I wear.  I had the marathon date be pushed up from Early January (Disney), to Early November (NY) to 9/29/12.  One thing I never did though was sit down or get off my feet because I could no longer stand.  I did stop to walk a few times (Approximately 7) but never did I sit to rest.  Some say this is bad because that means I never pushed myself to the Max, but I say it’s good because I kept trucking.  Those times I was forced to stop because I couldn’t run anymore I consider pushing it to the max.  All in all, the experience really sucked and I will never do it again but there’s just one more run left!