Diary of what followed after I finally succeeded in completing a marathon just in time, before my 50th birthday.

Sunday 12 October 2008

SHORT

This week I did not manage to complete any of my trainings. I fell short of my target three times in a row. Not by much, but enough to be ever so slightly discouraging.

Dress rehearsals are like that, or so I remember from doing high school drama. A good final rehearsal meant a bad opening performance, and vice versa. Can I trick my brain into thinking it's the same with my final trainings?

No more long runs to go before M-day, in a week from now. On Tuesday (early morn, considering my work schedule) I do 40 minutes. Then on Thursday 3 tempo runs of 5 minutes only, preceded and followed by 15 minutes at a leasurely pace. And on Saturday a 30 minutes jog, to prevent pre-match stiffness.

Here's my other worry: my shoes are pretty well worn to bits. It's too late to start running with a new pair, so I have no option but to use my current shoes for the marathon...

But maybe I'm just getting nervous. Receiving the confirmation letter in the mail a couple of days ago, with a poster-size map of the marathon track, certainly made it all very real...

Ready or not: Amsterdam, here I come!

1 comment:

Arbiter of taste said...

I'm so excited for you. I know it was only my first half-marathon back in mid-September - I'm not nearly up to your speed yet, but I was super nervous about the race. And then when it came, I was just so pumped with curiosity to see if I could do it that I just wanted to run my heart out. Don't be nervous - you'll love it, and you'll just run your heart out to see what you can do.