Relax A Little

Last Sunday I ran 11.3 miles. The Wednesday before that, I ran 8 miles. That's a good solid 19.3 mile week of running.

If you add that to all my runs over the past two months, that comes to.....let's see here..... hold the three, carry the eight..... ummm.....where's my abacus when I need it.....ok........errrr... That comes to a grand total of 31.7 miles that I've run in two months.

Let me repeat that for you people out there that are slow of reading. I've run 31.7 miles on the road since September 7th. It is now November 2nd. Two months.

Don't worry, you say. It's the off-season, you say. Relax a little, you say.

Shut up, I say. I've got the New York Marathon in 3 days.

Yes, it's true. I will be running more miles this Sunday than I have in total since the beginning of September. And here's the thing that baffles me: I'm not real worried about it. In fact, the thing that scares me the most is the fact that I'm not scared. I'm kind of at peace with the whole thing. Maybe even looking forward to it.

Trust me, I'm not the type of guy that can go out and run a marathon all willy-nilly. At least I didn't think I was. But it seems that I've overcome the mental barriers of the whole thing. I've got no expectations. It goes without saying that I'll be breaking no land-speed records. I'll have to walk through some aid stations, that's for sure. I'll have to pick a slow pace and stick with it, that's for sure too. But I'll finish the race, I'm pretty sure that's for sure.

In fact, I bought a disposable camera today. I've decided to document my journey through the streets of New York. I've never run the NY Marathon but I've heard it's a blast. If it's half as much fun as everybody tells me, I want to grab a few photos on the way. Maybe it'll even stop me from passing out.

OK, gotta finish packing.

See you on the other side.