I’m now two weeks before my marathon, and I’m not confident that I’ve done all I can to finish strong.  I’m in the taper weeks and I’m still having a few “bad” runs for every “good” run.  All I think about is what I’ll feel like at mile 16, 18, 20, 26?  Will I even make it that far?  Surely others have trained less then me and will finish.  There is no reason why I won’t finish.  I’m trying positive visualization and seeing myself running down the last .6 miles with a smile on my face.  However, I also see myself limping along crying…and that can’t be good.

I’m nervous I won’t finish, or I’ll bonk, or I’ll get a leg cramp.  I’ve never done any of these things, but they seem plausible.  I know nerves are good, if I wasn’t nervous I would be more worried.  I also know that I’ve been training at altitude, and I’ve at least kept up with my training runs about 90% of what was on my plan.  The saying that “something is better than nothing” should give me some hope.  I’ve never followed a training plan for an event, I’m actually proud of the fact that I kept up with it for the most part.  I am also disappointed in myself that I didn’t follow it 100%.

My friend is also running the same event, we have different paces (she’s much faster than I am) and she starts about an hour before me.  Which means, if I take two hours longer to run, she’ll finish 3 or so hours before me.  I don’t much mind this, however it would be awesome to have someone at the finish line to help me get back to our hotel.  I have no idea what state of mind I’ll be in…and for sure I may be crying, either from pain or joy.

I appear to everyone around me to be super confident, however I do suffer from bouts of sometimes crippling self-doubt.  I have on occasion not shown up to events or races because of my self doubt.  This can’t be one of those times, I have an airline ticket, a hotel room, an entry, and friends are going with me.  I want to finish strong and be proud of this accomplishment.

I’m also slightly worried about my start time and the time it will take me to finish.  I don’t start running until 11am, I have to be at our VIP bus at 5:45am, and I won’t finish running until about 4:00pm!  I need to really figure out what I am going to eat and when so I don’t want to curl up in a ball on the side of the road at about mile 10.

I have my work cut out for me, and I know that I will finish, what I’ll look like at the end is still to be determined.  Stay tuned to see what happens in a few weeks!