Half Marathon Eve Eve

I'm finally resting after a busy couple of days. It feels so luxurious to sit in bed with my laptop, watching Saxondale with Sean and Maple. The window is cracked open and the fresh cold air feels great on my bare feet.

Maple had school vacation this week, so there was a lot more driving than usual for Sean and me. I was moving at top speed, trying to pack a full workday into about 6 hours, since I had to run in the morning and pick Maple up from gymnastics at 3. Then last night, our sweet old dog Phoenix started acting really strange. Her face puffed up and she just stood staring at the ground, not moving. Each time she tried to lay down, she got back up and assumed her strange position. We took her to the doggy ER where they said she was stable, but they thought $700 worth of bloodwork and x-rays were in order. Fortunately Sean was more sensible than I was, and we declined. Today she is absolutely fine, but it reminded me of how special she is and that I can't take my time with her for granted.

Tonight we packed for the trip to Cape Cod and straightened up the house. It was fun putting together my bag of running stuff for the race and measuring out individual portions of my pre- and post-race powders. I'm still not sure exactly what my fueling plan is, but I'll have Gu Chomps in the pocket of my new running jacket just in case. I think there will be Gu along the way, and Gatorade too. I typically don't fuel well on long runs; I run with a hydration pack and I try to eat gels every hour or so, but I am usually too nervous to take much in. But since I ran 14 last Saturday, I feel almost confident about racing 13.1 on Sunday. It's not exactly new ground; it's 0.9 miles less than I ran last week!

I expected to be more nervous about everything, but I'm calm and really excited for the race. I know this could change and I could get hit with a wave of anxiety tomorrow, but my goal for the race is not to freak out. Even more than a time goal, I want to have fun and not make my family crazy (which I'm known to do on occasion, or maybe, quite often). Also, if I stay calm, I'll be more likely to eat and drink and not have a bad stomach.

At the end of last year, I was trying to decide on a running goal for 2012. The two top possibilities were to try to beat my 5k time from college (24:28), or to run a marathon. I thought about it for a few days before I decided on the marathon, and I'm so glad I did. I think running longer agrees with me and I've always wanted to run a marathon. If I put it off for another year, who knows what could happen? Bad things can happen to anyone, but with MS following me around like a dark cloud, I feel like I have more than just a chance of bad things happening. "Okay, let's do this," I thought. And I am!