Well, how the heck did we get here?? 6 weeks until the big day and once again I find myself with unmet expectations. My intellect knows that I can pull this thing off, but everything else in me is saying that I am an idiot and why didn’t I get in more mileage and I’ve never going to make it and I’m going to look like a fool because Chicago is a race with serious runners and I’m going to finish last (yes, I was an English major and yes I know that was a run on sentence)

But then Scott reminded me this morning about what a great blog post it would make if I DID finish last. Because just as there’s only one winner for the Chicago Marathon there’s also only one person that finishes last. Hmmmmm . . . interesting.

The truth is, I most likely WON’T finish last but I still have many unmet expectations about my training thus far. At this point I had hoped to be averaging 30 miles/week. It’s been way less than that more like 20 – 25.

I’d hoped to be doing regular strength training because that really helps with speed and everybody who runs fast does strength training. Nope. I think I did it twice.

I’d hope to lose some lbs. Well, OK, I did do that part. I’m down about 10 pounds from where I was last marathon so that’s something.

This past week I started getting some little aches and pains out of nowhere. My ankle did something funky on my 4 mile run on Tuesday which meant I’ve taken the last 3 days off. And whenever I take more than 2 days off I do this weird thing where I convince myself that I don’t know how to run AT ALL and I’ve completely lost all my fitness in 3 days.

Yes, thank you, I know that’s not true. But it feels true. (bonus points if you just thought of Rosie O’Donnel’s character in Sleepless in Seattle).

And then there’s this little interesting development – West Nile Virus is attacking our small TX town so the city is spraying some lethal mosquito repellent from an airplane tonight. And I’m planning to run 15 miles outside tomorrow morning. Does anyone think that might be a problem?? Oh, and there’s supposed to be a thunder storm tomorrow morning, too.

But there’s no way out of it – even if I end up having to wear a gas mask or (worse) do the entire 15 miles on the treadmill the mileage is happening. Because in 6 weeks, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise, I’m headed to Chicago with 44,999 of my new best friends to run 26.2 miles. And I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

Happy Running!!

Jen