Ready or Not.....Countdown is Official

I thought October would never come! When Marathon training started about 17 weeks ago, October seemed like a distant future. Even when we were doing our peak mileage at the end of August and September, I thought this month would never arrive. Training felt like a never ending cycle of; sleeping, running, eating, stretching, repeat. And now, it's here. And now, I'm freaking out!

Seriously, I am an erratic mess. I had a bout with a cold earlier this week and I was kind of down in the dumps. I was so tired and just put all marathon thoughts out of my mind and focused on feeling better and getting well. Now, I’m in a panic. I sit here, on October 2nd, worrying that I wasted this entire 2 weeks before the marathon doing nothing as far as preparation has gone. I’ve done my running for the week with my dos amigos, but that’s it. No icing, no hot tubs, no foam rolling, NO ICY HOT! I have not studied the course and focused on where the aid stations are (as suggested by my marathon newsletter update). I haven’t planned out my meals for next week. I’m not set on what bag I’m going to bring or what I’m going to put in the bag. I usually have all my long runs planned out; what time I’m going to get up, my gear I’ll need for the run, when I’ll stop for water, when I’ll have my gu packs and I also plan on multiple back ups if my first inclinations don’t pan out. I am a planner, I plan! Now, it’s October 2nd and I have 9 days left. Nine days that I’m sure will go way too fast.

I am going to take a deep breath, stretch out the ‘Ol hammies and refocus. We have an 8 mile run on Saturday and I can’t believe it’s our last long run on the lakefront and chocolate milk at Sark’s in the Park. Oh, one last thing. A couple of years ago someone made a great documentary about the Chicago Marathon entitled, “Spirit of the Marathon.” If you are a Netflix subscriber, you can watch it for free on your computer and I believe Hulu.com shows it for free as well. I think you could probably rent it at your local video store or even library. It’s a great documentary and a fun watch. Happy October! Yikes