Rituals

Clothes laid out, bottles filled, phone charged, route printed... duct tape handy incase it's needed, new socks, old shoes, BODY GLIDE - because if you have duct tape you really REALLY should have body glide handy...  yes.  I'm ready for 20.

I thought the ritual of preparing for my run tomorrow would extinguish the nervousness.  It has not.  I'm apprehensive for a lot of reasons.  For one thing, the last 20 miler didn't go so well.  In fact, it went so poorly that I spent a lot of time on that run thinking, "well hell.  How am I supposed to go 6.2 more miles".  I spent an equal amount of time on that run thinking, "what the frick was I thinking signing up for a marathon?" and "If I lay down on the side of the road people will think I'm dead or dying so I can't do that... or can I?"

One of my concerns now is, "what if tomorrows run is that bad?  How will I mentally force myself to finish the marathon if tomorrows run sucks?"  Of course, it's SO easy to SAY, I'm just going to finish because I'm trained and I can. But, when you're in the moment, feeling the pain of each step and your muscles are tired... it's hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other.  AND that's the perspective I gleaned on a 20 miler, NOT on a marathon.

So where was I?  Oh right, on to why tomorrow's run isn't going to suck.  OK.  Probably shouldn't start that paragraph out with the fact that I'm actually sick, and have been battling, uh, unmentionable stomach issues associated with the H1N1 flu all day, huh?  Ok then, it's not going to suck because this was a light week.  I'm fairly well rested and had a lovely taper last week.  I ate well today and drank a ton of liquid today to try to counter act my sickness.  Oops, I forgot we weren't talking about that...  OK, so "I hydrated today to prepare for tomorrow run".   I had a positive outlook on the last 20, and that didn't really seem to help, but I've had a positive outlook on this one all week - so hopefully it DOES help this time.  

I'm going to make some decaf tea to soothe my tummy, and tomorrow I will wake full of energy and ready to go, with a stomach of steel, legs ready and fleet feet.