In this vlog entry, the narrator documents the sixth day of a 28‑day marathon training program. The day begins with a restless early‑morning wake‑up at 3:10 am, difficulty falling back asleep, and a cold 30 °F start. After a brief delay to retrieve a missing phone armband, the narrator and training partner Grant set out for a long run, aiming for 22 miles. The run is slow (≈4.5 hours) and mentally challenging, compounded by a prior night’s dehydration mishap that caused excessive nighttime bathroom trips. Mid‑run, the narrator finds a $21 bill, adding a light moment. After completing 22 miles (Grant runs 25.3 miles), they head to Atlanta to replace worn shoes, trying on the Nike GT‑2000 (fourth generation) at Westride. The afternoon continues with a family gathering and dinner at a Mexican restaurant run by a friend, Tito, from Zama. The narrator reflects on the mental toughness required, acknowledges a relaxed diet during this training phase, and expresses confidence in the upcoming marathon, planning to taper mileage over the remaining weeks.
Chapters
It's about 4:30 in the morning on Saturday morning. I woke up at 3, about 3:10, and I've been tossing and turning in bed since then. And not the right thing for you, of course. The worse that— the more that you sit there and think about how you need to get back to sleep, the harder it is. Decided to try sitting in the big chair and changing my— changing where I am. Maybe that'll help me sleep. But I need to get back to sleep because big run in just a couple hours.
Just turned 7 o'clock. I got Grant in the car with me here.
Hello!
Hello! And the frost is now melted off the windshield, so we're gonna head out for our 20-plus mile run today. It is, according to the The thermometer here in the car, 30 degrees. I think it's probably a little colder than that. I think this thing runs a little cold and a little hot, so, um, probably be, uh, a little chilly. Off to a bit of a rough start. We got over to the neighborhood where we run on our long run, and I discovered that I didn't have my armband to hold my phone, so I went ahead back to get it. I'm getting a little grumpy, and, uh, we were just discussing the fact that it doesn't matter. It's still a long way. I think the reason I'm grumpy is because last week after running 20, I kind of thought I had done my longest run, but I think Grant came back and told me that his mentor told him he had to run 24. So I guess that means I got to run 22. I'm not running 24. If I get to 22, I'll feel pretty good about the race and be able to start tapering for the next couple weeks. Got our hot hands on, we got one on the back, one on the front. We got extra jackets. It's cold. Uh, we started out at 30, and in the 10 minutes that wasted, it's gone down to 27. Sounds like fun. View of the sunrise coming up through the trees, there's just really, really pretty today even though it's cold. We make sure we have plenty of water and, um, you know, Power Bars and stuff like that out. So Grant's out seeding our course, making sure that we've got everything we need so that we can finish this long run. Just wrapped up 22 miles. Really, really slow today. 4+ hours. 4.5 hours actually. So pretty slow. Grant, how far did you go?
25.3.
Oh, Grant had to go more. 25.3. So he did great. We're gonna stretch a little bit here. Still recovering a little bit. I, uh, was about to tell Grant a story that, uh, happened at mile 1. I was really feeling kind of down. I didn't want to run, and I'm reaching for something here, and I knew I had to go 22 miles. So you listen, Grant. So I'm running over there, and as I get to mile 1, I find $21 on the ground. Not 22, 21. Like, 20— only 21 to go.
So that was—
that's pretty funny. That's—
that was odd, wasn't it? Yeah, Saturday afternoon, we've got the, uh, table in the back of the van we're taking up to Atlanta to, uh, give to our nephews. And we're going to, uh, hopefully stop and get some new running shoes because my shoes hurt today. Is that Grant? He's waving in the back, in the way back. Still waiting on Carson to come back because he had to go get his sunglasses. Couldn't find them. Let's go. And he couldn't find them.
Very good.
I think it's time for a new pair of running shoes, so we've come up to Atlanta to Westride. They always take good care of us, and we're gonna go inside and see what we can find. So we'll see, maybe we can find some sail shoes, dude. They got a lot of big sail shoes. This is a cool store. Let's periscope it. Yeah. All right, what are those? Make awesome It's a shirt that you buy off of Nike. Oh, okay. Cool.
For a training shoe, I run, running a marathon. Oh, yeah?
And what are you wearing currently? I'm currently wearing— I forgot the name.
It's— this shoe was continued, so it's this model, the newest model. Of this shoe.
GT-2000, the fourth one. And how do you like that?
I liked this shoe. It seemed this one was lighter than the one that I got. It may be because I don't know if the sizing went shorter this time because I had to go up a size, but I want to see if you guys actually have the size. I went up a size. And I want to go back down a size and see if—
he's wonky today.
Yeah, I am a little wonky, sorry.
We're going to have some dinner with our family, and we're going to see an old friend of ours who used to manage a Mexican restaurant in our town, and now he's up here. So I just want to know, what do you think about all of this?
I love it.
What do you recommend?
Everything.
He doesn't have much stuff. This is my friend Tito from Zama. Is it Zama? Zama. Yeah, good restaurant. So it's Saturday evening, day 6 of 28 days. Ran 22 miles today. Mentioned last night that at this level most of it is mental and really struggled today. Had a bad, bad night last night, overnight, and really all of that came from just a lack of being properly prepared. On Friday, I ran out of our bottled water and just didn't hydrate like I should have. So then Friday afternoon, I realized I hadn't done that, so I started to cram it and ended up staying up most of the night having to go to the bathroom because I had to try to hydrate. Just doing things that I shouldn't have been doing. I know better. But then I got out there this morning, I had a rough start, and Really just had to fight my way through it, had to convince myself that I had to finish this run today, and I'm glad I did. 22 miles. I feel confident that I'm going to be fine for the marathon now. Start to taper my mileage between now and the end of the month. As far as the rest of the day, I find, and you know, when you run a long run that you really need to keep moving. So we did have a good day. We got up to Atlanta and bought some new shoes and saw our friends at Westride, and they always take good care of us. And then Spent time with family and friends and had dinner at a friend's restaurant. And Tito at Zama took good care of us there, and his team did tonight. So Mexican's definitely not on the diet, but every once in a while we do enjoy to have some Mexican food. And from Friday night until about Saturday night, we generally speaking during this period of training have just kind of relaxed the, standards as far as it goes on the diet. But got the 22 in today, got a good day behind us. We'll rest tomorrow, and that'll do it for day 6 of 28 days.
