Hi there, this is Nic! Training has been going well, except it has been difficult to get out there this week. I'm currently taking a pretty intense course at school and the first exams were yesterday. Of course we went out to celebrate/commiserate afterwards so it was difficut to get out of bed this morning. 

On July 4th I ran the Melon run here in Gainesville. It's held by the Florida Track Club every year and there was a good crowd of people there. We got really nice tech shirts as well! The course was 3 miles and was pretty hilly, which was tough going since I don't do many hills in my training...I should probably work on that! The picture below is me and my Gainesville running buddies and one of their friends from Jacksonville; they like to dress up so I joined them in their tutus!

The last long training run we did was a half marathon for a virtual run by Will Run for Bling. It was called the Peace and Love Bug run and the medal is awesome! 

 
We ended up running continuously for 5 or 6 miles then started doing 3:1 minute run/walk intervals. It worked out pretty well for us and we were able to cope with the heat. We finished in just under 3 hours which I was excited about since the 2 other half marathons I did were 3:05 and 3:07,and this one had the added difficulty of being in the dead of summer! I'm looking forward to adding this medal to my collection!

So, the marathon training program officially starts this week! 137 days to go until the big day!

Bye for now!
Nic x