TGI...M?

One of my marathon books refers to this point in the training as the "emotional plateau" and boy am I feeling it. I feel like I've come so far but then I look ahead and see I have soooooo far yet to go. I'm tired, various parts of my body hurt at all times, my social life is all but non-existent. I have to take 2 hours of vacation time Monday in order to get a run in before I join friends for a movie. But the thing I think bothers me the most is my loss of love for the weekend.

Now that my mileage is getting pretty high, the long runs are getting, well, long. And that has started to make me dread Saturday mornings. This new Saturday morning dread has happened for a number of reasons.
1) I have to get up early. Saturday mornings used to be for sleeping in and maybe a leisurely breakfast with friends at a cafe. Now it's getting up early and eating Cliff Shot Blocks with Runner Wendy at hydration stops.
2) My run takes up half the day. By the time I meet up with Wendy, run double-digit miles, go home and shower, half the day is over. The requisite nap afterward takes another chunk out of my day.
3) I can't go away for the weekend. I normally am out of town approximately 2 weekends a month but now I have standing running appointments every Saturday with Runner Wendy. At this level of mileage it's hard to run the long runs on your own so having someone your relative pace to run with is extremely valuable and you want to avoid missing out on your shared runs.

So here it is Friday night just after 7:00 and I'm getting ready to enjoy some dinner and head to bed before 10:00 in preparation for my 15 mile run in the morning. I'm too young and too much fun to go on like this much longer!

Oh and to add insult to injury, while I'm running 3 back-to-back 5 milers (as I choose to think of it) my parents will be on their way to Honolulu. Sigh...