You've come a long way, baby.

It's here. Race week! In the past few weeks since my 20-miler high, I have waffled through every emotion possible. Twinge in my quad, mild cold, nervousness, being antsy, feeling like a slacker, unsure of my preparation, excited, and back to nervous again. I just got back from a pretty great 4 mile run so I'm settling on excited for now. 

Last week I was feeling very blah, and I pinpointed why during my run this Saturday. It just all came over me that there is so much going on these next few weeks (marathon, trying on my wedding dress with Mom, going back to Worcester for Megan's race, Megan's birthday, visiting the wedding venue in New Bedford, going to the catering tasting) and I'm feeling a huge hole because I would be sharing every minute of it with Megan. And I'm not. But on the way back from our run Saturday I was talking about this with my training buddy (who also lost her Dad to cancer) and not to sound trite, but you're allowed to let the sadness to take over, but you're also allowed to turn it into something positive to motivate you. I am very sad Megan isn't here, but I would hate to let being sad take over and not give this everything I have. I'm sure she will be encouraging and motivating me next Sunday just like she would if she were here. I would hate to wake up on Monday thinking I could have done better. 

Lots of marathoners say that the training is the hard part, and the marathon is a 26.2 mile party to the finish. Well that sounds good! It makes sense, seeing as how I've been training all summer. The preparation is (mostly) done, and I just have to trust my training to take me there. Someone else at my recent panel also suggested going back and looking through your training log to get yourself excited. As an engineer, I love stats and numbers, so of course I like to look back at my runs in Daily Mile. Check out my training for the last 26 weeks, when I first signed up for the marathon:

My training for the last 6 months. 

I've run almost 400 miles! That's further than it is from Chicago to Cleveland, Des Moines, St. Louis, Milwaukee, Green Bay, or Detroit. Almost to Minneapolis. 

Going further back, 7.5 months ago I had a double mastectomy and I got so winded I could hardly walk up my stairs at home. And then had my implant exchange surgery 2 months later. I think getting to where I am now, ready to run a marathon, is already quite an accomplishment. Even further back, the longest distance I had run before training was 10 miles. Now I've run two half marathons in preparation (with many more 13mi+ training runs). I was also exchanging stories with one of my marathoner co-workers today and I remembered a time even further back in high school on the track team (I didn't run, threw shot put and discus of course) when there were only 2 entrants in the 1600 (2 mi), so my team convinced me to run and get an automatic point. I got lapped! But hey, I finished. Point well earned. 

This summer I have worked so hard, as you have read, waking up early, training, soaking in ice baths, and stretching, and this is the week to enjoy how far I've come and get ready for the big race. I've had good runs, and bad runs, but I've done every training run, even if I had to cut a few of them short. I feel confident I can run the race I've trained for. I of course have a secret goal that I would love to crush, but realistically, I just want to finish with a smile. And I can't wait to see familiar faces on the course, and Tim, Mom, and Billy at the finish!