In Training: Marathon #6

I run with Orion
and Orion runs with me
onward through the dark night
and into the ever growing day

I wax and wane with Orion
onward on foot, up hills with great stride
metal-forged legs from the heart of winter
ready to embrace the ease of warm weather
and a new kind of suffering

*****

As I approach the end of my training cycle, I find that I'm mentally ready for this race. More than any marathon I've prepared for, I think, save for maybe the first marathon I ran where I was over-prepared. I'm at a point in my life where I'm confident in my ability to cover the distance, and I've had a good training cycle.

I dropped some workouts. That's not uncommon for me, but I made sure to run at least three times a week. So, in each week I still had an easy run, a workout, and my long run. That's pretty good for me, where I think in the past I've lost one type of run in a week, and this time I've held it together a bit more. In the heavier weeks I managed to cover 40-44 miles, with a couple of twenty mile runs in there including the Eastern States. So that's there to building my confidence base.

Also, I'm down about ten pounds. I continue to weigh myself every morning, so of course there are fluctuations, but generally speaking I'm down ten pounds. I'm hoping to drop another ten over the summer and into the fall, because I know I felt much better running wise at around 160. There will obviously be challenges in there, with the birth of baby #2 and a super active, very intelligent toddler in my life, but I'm still optimistic.

Family-wise I'm not sure that my wife and kiddo will be able to come to the marathon. My wife has been exhausted from the pregnancy, and she certainly has earned some time off her feet on Saturday. I'm a little sad at my daughter not seeing me finish marathon #6, but, she was there at my second run at Baystate, she was there at NYC. I also know there will be many more races in my future, so certainly it won't be something she'll miss out on too much. I might also take a trip to the zoo with her the day after this race, so we'll see how that goes.

Currently the weather for Saturday is 57 with some clouds and a light wind (knock on wood.) That would be amazing conditions for the race, but gives me a little bit of caution only because I've been training in conditions much colder than that, so I'm more accustomed to running in tons of gear at this point. Guess I'll have to pack a couple of outfits.