Tscherman Tank

Since Don has been officially deified, it appears that we're evolving towards a "Jonestown for Runners". This begs the question: Are they going to start serving Kool-Aid at the marathon's drink stations? If so, would you drink it?

As I'm not training for anything now and still within my self-prescribed minimum four week base-building routine, I have a little time to experiment more with the beer/running combo.
I noticed that completely matching beers with miles is actually complicated because, inherently, it means you have to ask yourself to stop drinking at some point. This is all fine after one beer, maybe two. And definitely after twenty or so. But stopping after four beers? Come on, I'm just finding my groove! That's the sweet spot! Drinking is an art, and that's like asking a writer to intentionally subject himself to writers-block.
Anyway. I think this week my beer-to-run comparisons read thusly:

Mon/Tues- 2 Beers to 4 miles
Thu/Fri- 800 beers to 3 miles
Sat/Sun- 3 Beers to 6 miles

As you can see, there is some pretty wild variations, and Thursday was the result of a university reception for fellows/researchers in which they were serving (literally) kegs of beer. Nonetheless, I've found I can drink approximately half my distance and still come away unscathed. Of course, like I said, I'm not training for anything yet. For those of you running BtoB, I would double the beer and halve the miles. That hill is a bitch.

Seriously though, I have ten days left in my orignal recuperation plan. Then I officially go into hyper ass-kicking mode. Possibly. (Updates on that in ten days.)
Last week's Runs

Distance: 17 Miles
Avg. Time (min per mile): 8:46
Long Run: 6 Miles
Overall Impression: I Alternate Between Very Pleased and Very Nervous. (IABVPaVN)

All in all, the runs have been pretty good. I fatigue earlier and my lactate threshold is negligable, but I'm pleased with my early pace. When I add speed work to it in a few weeks, I think I should be in a better place than before the marathon. I'm still hesitant to add too many more miles yet, since I want to keep my legs intact and functioning...
Of course, this is all contigent upon whether my IT Band holds up. It gets tight, as it did earlier, but it never tightens like it did in October. It slowed me down during the second half of the six miler on Sunday, but I still finished with a negative split, so I'm not really complaining. I seriously have to stretch all day to make it work though. Non-stop. I'm stretching as I type this, and I'll be stretching when you read it.

PS: Tessa is now running two miles, twice a week. We'll have her on here in no time.