The Last Week

Well, I now have 5 days until I run my very first marathon and I am excited, nervous, and eerily calm as well. I'm not sure how I can be feeling all of these emotions at once, but I am. I am excited to say I ran a marathon, yet I am nervous about how well I will do and if I can finish at all, then again at the same time I feel calm that everything will be fine. Weird, I wonder if every new marathon runner feels this way.

As far as last week, I ran a 6 miler on Monday and my pace was 9:30~ish so, right where I should be. Then I biked Tuesday for an hour just to keep up on exercising. Then I ran another 6 miler on Wednesday, but my pace was 9:15~ish. I didn't realize I was really pushing it, but I felt great, the legs, feet, and lungs were all functioning properly without any hint of pain, or over exertion. Thursday I was suppose to bike, but I didn't and Friday I was way too busy with life to bike either, but I ended up running 10.41 miles on Saturday in the pouring rain. Well, the rain didn't pour the whole time, but it drizzled most of the time. After 10 minutes we were soaked anyway, so it didn't matter how much it rained after that. It turns out our pace ended up being 9:17~ish I believe. I wasn't planning on running it that fast, but it was nice to get out there and run about as fast as we should be for this time in our training. It seems like I didn't take that month off, but inside I know I have and that I would feel so much more comfortable with the upcoming marathon if I had been able to train for that month.

Other than that and the butterflies about the marathon as well as curiosity about the weather (the forecast says it will be a low the night before of 37 and a high of 56 with sunshine). Let's hope the forecast is right and its not snowing. Since this is a race close to Halloween we have the opportunity to dress up in costume for the run. Since I've never run a marathon before, I'm dressing up as a marathon runner who is running a race in late October (I'll be dressing in warmer clothes). Well, I plan on writing one more time before the marathon and then again after with pictures of the event. Wish me and my buddy luck as well as my wife who gets to take care of the kids for 4 hours in the cold while I run my guts out. Gotta run.