Ye Olde Day Before Ye Olde Marathonne

Ok I am in a fully de-trained state and I am going to do a full olympic distance marathon tomorrow. I am scared to death.

My very cool neighbor, that just moved in a couple of months ago because I live on a bike trail - is training for a full ironman in Switzerland early next year, and I have started training with her.

I am tired of being (in the words of one of my friend's dad when I lived in florida..) "Slower than a herd of fertile turtles". I can smoke anyone on the bike trail, keep a 24 mph pace without dying (I just feel like dying), I can find your favorite darkness in the swim (you will be floating face down if you try to catch me). The run. To give you an example of how bad, on my 10k I paced 12 minutes per mile.

Let me explain. The run is where I literally, at one point, wanted to jump up on the back of the runner in front of me and have him carry me across the finish line. When you have thoughts like that, you have to wonder whats going on. I'm not handicapped, last time I checked I'm fairly strong and fit and whats even more strange is that I ran when I was in school and I was fast. I used to pace 5 minute miles on cross country. I placed 11th in a major meet running hills - big hills - with over 140 runners in the field. I can run. I love to run.

Now I hate it. I've hated it for years. No injuries, just hate it. I guess the bike gets you spoiled a bit. You go so fast. 40 miles is nothing. But 12 miles can be a bitch.

So here I am listening to "Its Been Awhile" by Staind, thinking of my slxf who can run the fucking mile in 3:47 seconds and just hearing her words echo in my head. Glad we are still good friends. She said something I am taking to heart. I asked her how she did it. She said "Have you ever seen Gattaca, the film?" . I just looked at her.. she knows I'm a film buff. "Yes".. "Remember when one of the brothers, asked the other one who was supposed to be so inferior - how he had beaten him every time?" ... "Yeah"... "What did he say?"... "He said .. I never left anything for the swim back". Thats it. I am not going to leave anything for the run back. I am going to leave all of myself out there. Then I am going to come back and snack on some really, really good food.

Rage against the machine.