Slo Jo: Marathon Dreams

Distance: 8 miles
Pace: 11:00 avg
Brooding thoughts about marathon: infinite

The marathon is in seven days. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thinking about it. Constantly. When I listen to music, I'm asking myself whether that song should go on the marathon mix. When I see someone cough, I apply Purell. And my subconscious mind is definitely worrying. Every night for the past three nights, I've dreamed about it. It goes like this:

(1) TST and I are getting ready the morning of the race, and I realize I did not wash my running outfit. It is disgusting. I take it to the laundromat, but it is too busy. I run back to our hotel thinking I will Febreze it. TST is there, making chicken. I offer to Febreze the chicken as well, but TST says she will just cook it, instead. (This dream is clearly related to our Bisbee stair climb run.)

(2) TST and I are there the morning of the race. There is a rally going on: "Who thinks they can break 4:30?" I don't raise my hand. Instead, I need to pee. I go to the porta potty, and it requires you to climb a ladder to get to the seat, which is high in the air and rickety, and there are five seats per porta pot, requiring one to get to know one's pantless neighbors.

(3) I run the first half and realize I forgot to pin my number on and therefore my time is not being tracked. This sucks. And, after the first half, the race organizers make us wait for a van to take us to the second half of the race rather than letting the runners, you know, run there.

So, it appears my worries are not being prepared. And needing to pee. It's funny that my concerns are mainly gear related, and things I can fix. Like, I can bring a clean running outfit to NOLA. I don't think I will forget to pin my number on. I'm sure the real underlying concern is that I'm not physically prepared.

But I am, I tell myself. I went for an eight-mile run this afternoon and was trying to run 11:30s, and I was doing 10:45s. I could have gone faster, but I wanted to do 11:30s because I was trying to run closer to race pace. I am so rested up from the taper that my body actually wanted to run fast. Since when does THAT happen? Usually I'm quite content to trudge along, but today I kept speeding up.

So I think we're ready. I know TST is. We have made it within a week of the race, and we're not injured or sick. We've accomplished half the goal: getting to the start line. I'm actually getting really excited about the race itself. I'm nervous, but excited. We put in the work--now it's time to go do it! Thus, the new dream should go like this: we get to the race on time, the porta pots are single seaters, we each run our own race, and we end feeling good and proud of ourselves. And then we go have some celebratory cocktails.