Tara  Tara Tara...  My running partner, my friend, and the nutcase who got me into this. Tara always dreams big, and absolutely always follows through and makes things happen, Tara is talented at whisking things up from the thin air ana making them real. It was hard to not open up to her vision of our Berlin marathon together. Whatever Tara says, makes sense. Tara is not an idealistic daydreamer living in fantasies of greatness, Tara comes up with ideas and makes them into things-done. Tara messaged me some weeks back with clues on her struggling to see how th marathon training fits into herlife at the moment. I smelled something wasn't quite right, but I burried my hand in the sand. Eventully Tara broke the news to me that she will not be running the marathon. I burried my head in the sand and pretented that didn't happen. After this episode, Tara gave me some time to process, and her reasoning.  I burried my head in the sand, but it was unavoidable now. Panic settled in: how

 15 August 2022 I slept 6 hours last night - it was very very hot, even with the fan on. I had hoped for an 11 hours sleep (for the sleep debt from the night before, plus the almost 3 hours of running yesterday). I am feeling so tired, but cannot even take a nap, although kids are entertained by their grandma. I am still prcessing my long run yesterday. It was the longest I had ever, in the heat. I remember clocking a 25km sometime in December perhaps, but that felt entirely different. That time, I didn't even take much water with me, and I only had about 2 electrolyte gels on me. Queue yesterday: 1.5litres of H2O in  backpack; 8 energy gels; a can of full sugar Coke. The gels make a HUGE difference. I have learnt that fuelling regularly through long runs makes it for a muuuch more enjoyable experience, and I feel I am not a zombified mess when I finish the run - not as much.  However, at km 17ish  I ran out of my 1.5 litres of water. I found mysef on a long stretch of industrial l