This is it, my friends.
16 weeks of honeymoon, apathy, pure pain, momentum, and everything in between, I’ve reached the last emotional stage of marathon training:
Anxious excitement.
I doubt I’ll update P&P until Sunday after the race, so without further ado I present my marathon training wrap-up.
I honestly never thought this day would come.
Days until Big Sur International Marathon: 3 [photo above courtesy of bsim fb page]
Race reputation: “If you only do one, make this be it;” “one of the top three marathons in the US;” “one of the most difficult marathon courses in the world”
Weeks of training: 16
Total miles run: 411 (missed one jog on the GPS)
Average pace: somewhere between “snail” and “turtle”
Total calories burned running: 40,646+
Weight loss: I gained weight. There’s something unfair about this.
Number of times my rockstar mom ran training runs with me: half a dozen (she’s running a 10.6 miler at Big Sur too, by the way! She ran a 3:30-something marathon when she was my age and ran the Nike Women’s Marathon with TNT a few years ago, AFTER battling leukemia… TWICE. She rocks!)
Race location: Pacific Coast Highway
Where I ran on the Pacific Coast Highway during training: San Francisco and Los Angeles
Total packets of GU consumed: countless
Determined favorite flavor of GU: Chocolate Outrage
Will I miss GU after this race: hells to the NO
Toenails lost: 2
Friends lost because I kept talking about how I was missing toenails: not yet determined
Time required for first 6.1mi training run: 1:06
Time to run a 10K during my Shamrock’n Half Marathon: 53:46
Long Run Locations: Granite Bay, American River, Sacramento, Berkeley, LA, and SF
Attitude towards pedestrians before training: Yay, people out walking and being healthy!
Attitude towards them after training: GET THE &@*! OUT OF MY WAY.
Most inexplicable decision made: going vegetarian less than two weeks before starting training
Obsession throughout the last four months of my life: protein
Brands of protein bars and powders in my kitchen: half a dozen
Friends lost because I kept talking about protein: not yet determined
Percentage of Pancakes & Postcards posts about running pre-January: <1/10
Percentage of posts after: 50%
Number of times I swore I never would be a blogger who always talked about running: countless
Number of pairs of Asics Gel-Kayanos bought: 2
Course elevation profile:
How much training I did on hills: eh…
Pleas for empathy posted on BSIM facebook page: 1
Number of “marathon dreams” I’ve had: at least 10
Current desktop on work computer:
Goal of current desktop on work computer: stop eating crap at work
Success of that initiative: nope. It’s just making it harder to see my icons.
Goal time: on a flat course it’d be 4:45, but Big Sur tells everyone to add 20-30 minutes to their marathon time, so…
Goal time: under 6 hours 30 minutes so they let me finish. And I want a damn medal.
Recent reading:
What I’ll be repeating in my head during those four… five… six hours:
Step one: put one foot in front of the other. Step two: there is no step two.
You deserve to be here. You are so much stronger than you think.
Stop being a big baby, quit whining, and run the damn thing already!
How I’m feeling:
Anxious.
Scared.
Terrified of failing.
Didid I mention I didn’t really train on hills so much?
Apprehensive.
But most importantly…
I am so damn excited I can’t sleep.
Tomorrow I pack my race bag, make a killer 6 hour (haha) marathon playlist, and TRY to turn off my brain enough to rest.
Saturday at 8AM I’m outta here.
Bring it on Big Sur! I can’t wait to put you behind me.
The next time I update this blog, I’ll either have conquered this race and given it all I had, or gone down in flames trying.
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