Friday, October 14, 2011

Nervous ramblings as race day approaches

*****GULP*****


The Columbus Marathon is SUNDAY!

To say I'm nervous would be a vast understatement. This is marathon #2, and what I'm going to write is complete deja vu from what I wrote before Cleveland:
"Here's what killed my confidence... I'm ashamed to say it but I dropped the ball on my training."
So, yea, totally dropped the ball on my training -- and I don't have a move to blame it on this time.

Everything went great through the final 12 (well, 13.1) mile run. Then I went out two days later. And my legs just wouldn't move! I ran with Karl in Granville, he tried to push me to no avail, I gave up after 1.5 miles.

Ok, I needed rest. I took 2 days off. I was visiting my parents and tried to go out for 3 miles that Friday. Part of it was maybe the big dinner, but this time 2.5 miles was too much. Now I'm getting nervous.

The next day was my Spinning certification class, which I'll blog about in a separate post (likely after the marathon). I let two really difficult spin classes take the place of the 8-mile run. I burned almost 800 calories between them, so I didn't feel guilty.



I started to feel better this week. I was able to complete all my runs, but with a nagging calf pain persisting throughout. I did 3 with Brandie Monday, 3 at the bio Tuesday and 2 with Lizzie Dog Thursday.

So, time to take care of the calf pain. I got a massage and am going to spend tomorrow stretching, foam rolling and icing. All I can do is cross my fingers and hope nothing is seriously wrong!

My mind is cluttered with everything I need to remember before Sunday. My plan is to get there really early, warm up and stretch really well. MIT has been wonderful enough to provide pre- and post-race accommodations for us, so knowing these things are taken care of is a huge load off my shoulders.

Despite the wretched two weeks in running I'm still going to shoot for a 4:20. My plan is to run with the 4:30 pace team for the first 18 miles or so, then speed up in my speedy kind of way :) I'm hoping to run the race the same way I ran Cleveland, only 12 minutes faster.

More tomorrow. In the meantime, best of luck to everyone running!!

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