If you’ve been following my marathon training on Twitter, then this post may not be as interesting as you’d been hoping. 🙂 I usually like to spend some time thinking about a race before committing it to memory by recapping it here on the blog, but I don’t feel the need to do that this time around. Sometimes when there are no words to assign to a race experience. Sure, most of the time there are MANY words that come to mind when thinking about running long distance (most of these words go something like: ouch, painful, the “wheels came off”, I went out too fast etc.). I have 27 days left until the Chicago Marathon and I don’t even know what I’m thinking or how I’m feeling besides this:

“What am I going to do once all the training is done with and I race my first marathon?”

Let’s be honest. This is probably normal. I have a ridiculous fear that I will become depressed and slothful after October 9th. I may need to scrape myself off of the couch and work up the motivation to get out of the house (or onto my new rooftop deck). And you know what? It may just happen. But hopefully not for long. I figure I should be able to sleep, eat, drink, and relax all I want after dedicating EIGHT months to marathon training this year.

After 8 months of running at least 3-4 days a week, my reward will be a kickass first marathon.

A wonderful, supportive friend was there to see me and another friend, Dustin, complete the half on Sunday. 🙂

This past weekend was a tiny peak at what that day could be like. I ran the Chicago Half Marathon yesterday and surprised myself…again. In fact, I think I have surprised a lot of people in the past few months. But, let me tell you, no one is as surprised as I am right now. Yesterday’s plan was to work the half marathon into a ‘training run’. I would run 3 miles before even starting the race, run a very smart race pace-wise, and run 2-3 miles cooldown afterward. And, just as it has been for the past couple of months, I can honestly say “mission accomplished”.

A total of 18.2 miles yesterday, with 13.1 badass racing miles. I’m all SMILES about yesterday’s race and what I’ve been able to accomplish in 8 months. This week will be another tough training week for me, with my last long run ( 3 1/2 hours) to run on Sunday. I’m really really ready to rest up and to taper. And I know once I do taper, those Taper Tantrums will come to get me. But taking it easy sounds pretty perfect right about now. Alas, I have just a few more short weeks until that big START LINE  flashes before me on October 9th. Until then, I’m going to keep my head down, put those miles in, see the hard work pay off even more, and sleep as much as I possibly can.

FINALLY!  A “flying feet” racing photo 🙂

Pretty darn happy 🙂

-J