READY OR NOT...

Weight: 77 kilos
Time spent running since 15 November: 63 hours 28 minutes
Distance run since 15 November: 584.7 kilometers
Time left: 5 days

With only one, short training session left (tomorrow), I know that I'll have reached roughly two-thirds of my training targets by Sunday, aka Marathon Day. Almost 600 kilometers (instead of 900) and almost 65 hours (instead of 100). Travels and a long-lasting flu are the culprits. Does this mean that on Sunday I'll be able to do the first 28 kilometers but not the last 14?

Mind you, the distance I trained is not that much short of the crow's flight from Brussels to Berlin. And as for the total time: If I'd started on a Friday night at 7, I'd not have finished before midday on Monday.

Meanwhile, my weight has gone up again. Last night's barbecue at Tanja's place certainly did not help. And with only minimal running this week, I doubt I can bring it down to 75 kilos.

It all matters little. There's no way back for me, and nothing I can do still to improve my readiness beyond eating and sleeping well this week.

And reading some motivational stuff, like the site of Alexander Vero. It includes a quote by Theodor Roosevelt, which is just what I need now to feed my unjustified confidence:

"It is not the critic that counts, nor the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Not sure whether my madness qualifies as a worthy cause, but apart from that...