Get me to the finish line, Lady Gaga

This time tomorrow, the marathon will be over. Ready or not, I'm running 26.2 miles.

I'm feeling pretty great, actually.  For the last couple runs this week, I felt energized, light on my feet, and more excited than panicked.  The speed training on Wednesday involved a series of 400 meter sprints, which I ran faster than I have throughout this entire training.  Each 400 around 1:40-1:50 -- not terribly fast for a sprinter, but great for me.

Sporting my new KBVCM shirt before my final run

Today I did a quick 3-mile run.  They say it's good to run the day before the race, so I saved this one for today.  I was supposed to run it at my planned marathon pace, which felt soooo slow for a 3-mile run.

It's fairly warm and humid again today (around 80° right now), and breathing wasn't entirely comfortable.
Tomorrow's high is 76 and partly cloudy.  It looks like it'll be in the 50s for the start of the run, which is absolutely perfect.  I'm grateful.  The hard thing with this training is that the majority of it seemed to be in the winter, or at least cool spring weather.  I don't feel like I've had enough time to get used to running in the heat.  I'm not quite sure how to deal with this for future marathons, when we may not be so lucky with the weather.

The rest of this day will involve consuming tons of water and gatorade, eating carbs, stretching, and not doing much else.

For the marathon, I decided that I'm going to listen to music for the last half.  Last time, I didn't listen to music at all, believing the crowd would adequately energize me.  Unfortunately, after 13 or so miles, the cheers from the bystanders become more annoying than motivating, and I mostly want to be left alone.  The idea is that when I start up my playlist, it will reset my mindset.

Behind the cut is my well thought out, tested throughout training, and slightly embarrassing list of songs that will get me to to the finish line.  I've never listened to so much pop music before this year's training.  At least I balanced it out with some pre-nose-job Hole.

This two-hour long play list will not be played in order.  I'm all about the shuffle.  You know, the list seems to be too short, but Spotify says it's 2 hours.  It is somehow comforting that 2 hours of music doesn't look like that much.

I think I may need to go back and add some Dolly Parton.

running out of time

Holy crap, the marathon is one week from today.  I have no idea where the time went, and I can't really believe it's going to happen.

The last couple weeks have been a little rough.  Ever since the 20 mile run 2 weeks ago, my energy level has gone way down.  However, I did complete the 20 mile run!  This is huge as I actually never completed a 20-mile run (without stopping to walk), well, ever.  During the training two years ago, I never made it past 17 miles.  Even during the marathon, I walked/ran the last 8 miles.  It felt good.  Exhausting, of course, but I felt prepared for it.

I did, however, run out of water and stopped in a corner store at the 17.5 mile mark to buy a gatorade.  That whole experience was strange.  I feel completely insane after running anything more than 15 miles.  But, as soon as I had my gatorade, I finished the last 2.5 miles no problem.

The following week, I began to show signs of overtraining - heavy legs, increased perceived exertion, and probably the worst bit was being rather unmotivated to run the longer runs.  Fearing that I may have already peaked, I cut back my running a little bit this week.  I played a few rounds of disc golf in place of one of the runs.

Then, I headed down to Montpelier to run in a 5K on Thursday, which was interesting.  My time was not fantastic - something like 27:30 (8:50ish mile).  I really should be running a 5K closer to 25 minutes, but I suppose that's not what I've been training for.  It was hard to get the right pace, and there were SO many people it was tricky to pass.  The nice thing about the marathon is that there's plenty of time for the crowd to space out.  The first 2 or 3 miles are a bit cramped and chaotic, with slower folks moving way too closer to the start line and faster runners underestimating themselves.

Today I attempted to run 8 miles.  I started too late in the morning, and it got way too hot and humid.  At the moment, it's a cozy 87 degrees.  I made it 6.5 miles before I stopped to walk.  I just felt like I couldn't breathe and I was going to pass out.  I really hope it's not this hot next Sunday.  I don't know what I'll do, besides drink an absurd amount of water.  Right now, wunderground is showing a high of 70 and partly cloudy for marathon day.  I can live with that, but what the hell do they know this far in advance?

At the moment I have to admit that I'm feeling a bit discouraged and anxious about the marathon.  With the fatigue, and the lousy 5K, and today's run, I'm afraid of failure, although I'm not sure exactly what that means apart from a DNF.  I do believe I am stubborn enough to get to that finish line one way or another, even if I'm finishing on my knees.

I have readjusted my goals.  Originally I wanted to finish the marathon in under 4 hours.  With how training has been going, I think that 4:15 (9:44/mile) is more realistic, and still faster than 2009's time.  More than that, I want to run the entire time (apart from slowing/stopping to drink liquids, of course).  That is the main goal.  They do have pace leaders at the marathon.  Last time I couldn't actually FIND them, but I will make more of an effort this time.

Sigh.  I can do this, right?