Marathon Eve

Workout:
Yesterday: Rest day
Today: 2.1 miles easy

Tomorrow I will be running my 5th marathon, the Miracle Match Marathon in Waco, TX.  It seems like the taper weeks just flew by and I'm hoping I am as prepared as possible.  Unfortunately, I have had a few obstacles working against that preparation.  For starters, I spent 9 days of this month (the first part of my taper) on a family ski vacation in New Mexico.  The vacation was a lot of fun, but it made it difficult to get mileage and intensity in, both of which I would have liked for the beginning of the taper.  Then, once I returned to Austin, I was thrown back into what is turning out to be a hectic semester of work.  This week in particular, being the final week of my taper, I have been striving to be relaxed, calm, rested and hydrated.  Circumstances at work have been doing everything possible to thwart this.  First, it has been hard to finish up anywhere near an 8 hr day.  While I am at work, I am almost never sitting, instead I'm doing bench work standing up or walking back and forth to different labs.  I've had deadlines, which doesn't help the "calm" and finally I cannot drink water while physically in the lab, which has made hydration a challenge.

But that is all behind me because today is Saturday and I slept in this morning and I am feeling well rested and happy.  I ran an easy 2 miles this morning and got a good stretch in.  Right now, I am eating some oatmeal and blackberries for breakfast and I'm feeling good.  In the early afternoon, boyfriend and I will make the relatively easy drive north to Waco, stop by the expo for my stuff and check into the hotel.  I booked a hotel room literally a block from the starting line, so I'm expecting an easy morning tomorrow.  While the weather forecast isn't ideal, it's looking pretty good...57 to 64 F but high humidity (starting at 96% and dropping to 70%).  I would have liked a race 10 degrees cooler, but you can't control everything.

So here we go, marathon number 5!  Tomorrow I'll be taking off the watch, running by feel, and seeing what I can do.  This is a hilly course, so I'm not focusing on a time, but rather feeling good and controlled in the race.  Best of luck to everyone running Houston tomorrow, as well as any other races!