Less than two weeks, actually!
Tonight my daughters and I painted my marathon shirt.

On the back we wrote go mommy! 26.2, and then, For my mom: strokes stink!

I can’t wait! i have to download some tunes onto my ipod before race day. My husband got me a fifteen dollar card for songs knowing that i wanted them for the race, how cool is that? I’m going to have to start thinking about what I want to listen to during that run.

today I swam for half an hour. it was good to be back in the pool; it has been a few weeks since I’ve gotten to swim.

Tomorrow is a six miler. Then only 8 on Saturday! Yikes! Then just one week and one day until the marathon. i can’t believe it is almost here! wow, how time flies when you are having fun running . . .

When I was mapping out my twenty mile run I loaded the girls into the car to check the mileage.

We headed out to the ocean and stared at the waves as we drove. After a bit, my oldest daughter said, “Wow, you’re going to run this far?”

I told her yes, this would be what mommy did while she was sleeping on Saturday morning.

“This is a really long way,” she told me, shaking her head, her eyes wide.

I laughed and told her yes, this would be twenty miles, the furthest I had ever gone.

And then she said what ever running mother wants to hear. “When I get big, I’m going to run this far too!”

Today was my 12 miler. I’m tapering now, and it was kind of weird. i got home in just 2 hours. I’ve shaved ten minutes off my half marathon pace, which is great, but I dont know that I can sustain that in the big race.

I missed going longer than 12. I almost did 13 instead, just because it felt like I was cheating somehow!

but the great thing is that I got home in time for my kids to wake up. Usually they have waken, eaten and are ready to go do something. Today we all had breakfast together.

I can’t believe I have just two weeks to go! It seems so long ago that I started this. I looked through my training book last night and smiled at some of the notes that I took.

What a great journey!

I’ll be happy to get back to doing my 15 milers. I like the 13s too. But I’ll be really happy when, in two weeks, I’m standing at that starting line ready to go!

I never thought I’d say it, but now I will: I can’t stop running.

I missed a day this week due to tooth work I had done on Saturday. They asked me to take it easy for two days; one of those should have been my six mile run. Since I’m so close to M-Day (two weeks and two days, but whose counting?!) I can’t really play around with my schedule right now, so I skipped that run. I figured I had done twenty on Saturday anyway, so it wouldn’t matter much. But boy can I tell it today! I really missed that six miler this week. I will not skip another day unless i absolutely have to.

I’m addicted.

When I started running ten plus years ago I never thought I’d hang this long and I never ever thought I’d say that I love to run. But I do. I can’t wait to get my shoes on.

Tomorrow is my twelve miler, but I’ll do thirteen (I know where that starts and stops-for twelve I’d have to figure out the six and a half mile mark-why not just do the 13?!)

I can’t wait to get my shoes on and go.

Next week, 8 miles. It seems such a short distance now that I’ve done 20. 8?! I mean, I could still do another 12 lol! Almost another half marathon . . . how messed up does that sound?

Today my friend stopped by and we were talking about the green market they have downtown. I told her I run by what is left of that each Saturday morning and see the tents. “You mean you run from here?” She asked, with a quizzical expression on her face.

Yep, if I”m doing an 11 miler, I said. And those are my shortest of long runs.

“You mean you run past there?” She asked, even more pained.

I ran 20 miles on Saturday, I told her.

And then she said, Why?

I about laughed out loud. Oh, no, maybe I did laugh out loud. I told her I’m doing a marathon in two weeks and she wanted to know how long that was. I told her 26.2 and she said, “Why are you going to do that? That’s crazy!”

I couldn’t explain it so I just shrugged and said I love to run. Especially distances.

Then she said, “Do they give you stuff when you get done?”

It’s been a long time since I wasn’t a distance runner. I forget what it was like to look at others who were going the miles and thinking wow, what are they, crazy? I know that I thought that. I do know that I did. And I know other people look at me and think the same.

26 miles . . . that’s a long way! I don’t care how much you run, that is a long, long way.

20 miles last Saturday, that was a long way too.

And I know in my head somewhere deep down that 12 miles is as well. But tomorrow’s run seems so short to me.

I think that this is how I know now that I am a runner. I don’t go jogging, I go running, because I can’t live without it and because 12 miles seems like such a cake walk.

Happy running!

When I began training I looked all over the internet to figure out how people could physically run 15, 20, 26.2 miles. I had no clue. COuldn’t comprehend it.

Now that I’m on the other side-I just finished my 20 miler yesterday (and boy are my legs tired–barump!) I can tell you exactly how I have done it.

Training, of course, which means adding on to the mileage slowly, building up so that your body can tolerate the added distance. For instance, I might run 13 on a long run, then 15 the next weekend, and then drop back to 11 to give my body a break. From 11 I’d go to 14, then 17, then 12. Two longer and then one in which I dropped back really helped me to gain distance and recover from my higher runs.

But honestly my best piece of advice is to break up your long runs into chunks.

Huh?

Let’s put it this way: You have a 15 miler to go. You have your regular long distance path carved out. You know that you are going to start out going left from your house, and then at mile marker 2 you will pass the elementary school, and then at mile marker 5 that cute white Victorian home, and then at mile marker . . . well, you get it. You find targets at different distances.

When you begin your 20 miler you don’t think Today I’m going to run 20 miles. Instead, you think that you are going to run to the elementary school. Once you are there, you visualize that white Victorian. And so on and so forth.

For me, I know that 3.5 miles is the ocean, 2 more miles is the pier, another mile is the road on which I cut off, and two miles down on that road I’ll view horses. I know where I go and then when I turn around I know what I will see next, because I’m simply moving backwards from my start.

By breaking the run up into chunks it is so much easier to tackle.

And my last trick? When adding on a higher distance – for instance, when going from 13 miles to 15 – all you have to think is, “Today I’m just running one extra mile out, and then I get to turn around and head home!”

Before long, you’ll realize there is nothing to this distance thing . . . nothing but a little time, a few gel packs, some water and a beautifully foggy morning that you never want to leave.

So, I did it! I did my twenty miler this morning.

It was a GREAT morning for a long run-foggy, cold, wet, misty, all of the above. Couldn’t see much in front of me. Did a lot of thinking.

The run took 3:30, so the marathon will take about 4:30. I’m good with that. Great with that, actually.

When I rounded the corner to my house at the end of the run, I threw my hands up in victory, shouted a few words and then cried just a bit.

20 freaking miles. I am blown away with myself right now.

I got home and my wonderful husband made me eggs and toast for breakfast. Then I had a long, hot shower and now a great cup of coffee with cream.

What a great way to start the day. After this my kids and I are going to do puppet shows.

20 miles.

Now all I have left are a 12, 8 and then the big day!

Three weeks from tomorrow I’ll be running my first marathon.

To think, I made it through the past five months of training.

Yahoo!

I remember the first run I ever did.

I’d started dating my boyfriend, who is now my husband, just a few months before. He was-and still is-a runner, though he does short distances, 3 or so miles a few times a week.

One day I was at his house. I’d watched him come in from those runs flushed and feeling so much better than when he had left, and since I was approaching thirty I thought that taking up something like running, which burned so many calories, might be a great way to tackle the extra pounds I was sure would fill my bones when I hit the big 3-0 mark.

So he handed me his beeper (yes, this was a while ago!) and said, “Go for as long as you can.”

That ended up being two minutes. I thought I was going to die.

I hated running.

I started running, but I hated it. I tried to do better, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t get my breath down, I always got pangs in my side, I felt I looked stupid when I ran, my gait was all wrong-on and on and on went my list of running complaints.

My future husband surprised me by signing us up for Race for the Cure. A 5K-3 miles (which now seems so short!). I knew I would have to keep training to run it, and so I did, even though I flew up to WV in the middle of December. I ran in the snow (probably still one of my favorite all time runs, and it was just thirty minutes!)

Up until the day of the race I swore to myself, and to anyone who would listen, that once that race was over I would give up running for good. “I hate it, ” I said to everyone. “I’m only doing this for that stupid race.”

And then I went to the race. It was held in West Palm Beach on a January morning. I can remember the excitement, all the people huddled around, anxious and excited. I remember the people on the sides of the road as we ran, and the way that they yelled out what a great job we were doing, to keep it up, we could do it.

And I vividly remember crossing that finish line and realizing that I would never ever NOT run again.

I still love races. The excitement, the fever, the rush. I still love seeing people on the sidelines yelling for me, a stranger that they will probably never meet. I can’t wait to see that on February 3rd when I run my first marathon.

If you hate running now, don’t give up! Keep at it, work your way to three miles, and then head off to a 5K. I promise you, the excitement that you find there will carry you through that three miles-and possibly 26.2 sometime in the future!