No Turning Back Now

"And no matter how you feel
It's what you do that matters
This is your moment to be strong
Today's your day, it's on!"

-It's On, Superchick

As of today, I'm officially signed up. According to the Flying Pig Marathon website, in 53 Days,12Hrs, 53 Mins, and 20 Secs from now, I'll be at the starting line again.

Okay, so panic is setting in a little bit. Two things are making me feel this way: 1.) The training program with Meters & Miles last year was much further along with mileage at this point than the training program that I'm following this year with the Ronckers program and 2.) I'm still 10 pounds over my pre-marathon weight last year. A friend put it into perspective for me this weekend when she said, "That's like carrying a bowling ball." While I don't have any intention of hauling excess weight for 26.2 miles, on the other hand I can't seem to stop myself from eating lots and lots of ice cream. It doesn't help that I moved within 2 miles of a Cold Stone store and I have a little card they punch each time I go in, and I'm oh-so-close to earning a free ice cream. Yep, I'm in a frequent ice cream-eater's club. This is NOT good.

Panic aside, I know this month's workout schedule should make it fairly easy to shed pounds (regardless of how many bowls, er, uh...pints of ice cream I eat), so I'm starting to worry a little bit less about that. And I am trying to keep in mind that the lack of mileage to this point is probably actually a good thing. Last year I did my 20-mile run a full month before the race since the schedule allowed for the more advanced runners in our group to do TWO 20-milers. While I ended up having a good race, the lull between the peak of training and race day made me feel really antsy. So, this year's schedule should actually be a vast improvement on my nerves once it comes down to the final few weeks of workouts. Still, when I hear about other runners well into the high teens in mileage already, it makes me feel like the frightened little kid in grade school who just realized she forgot to do her homework last night.

Last week was a down week, so I got a little bit of time to recover from the ghastly 13-miler from the week before and refocus. With a much more positive attitude, I was able to get in some very good workouts last week. For our Saturday group run, the Ronckers group did the Strides of March 10K. One of our coaches, Rod, told me it might be a fun goal to see if I can beat my Thanksgiving Day race time. Although I really am not too focused on time, getting faster is a good gauge that my level of fitness is improving. I was able to improve my time from Turkey Day by nearly a whole minute, which definitely gave me a little boost of confidence.

Furthermore, I did 3 workouts Saturday: We did a warm-up run of nearly a mile to get over to the start line from Newport, then I ran a mile cool-down afterward, to put me at just about 8 miles for the day. Then I did a Pilates class afterward and an hour-long walk later that afternoon. On Sunday morning, I did the O'Bryon's 5K race and had one of my best 5K times ever. So, with all of that, I'm feeling a lot more prepared for the race, fitness-wise. This week is an "up" week, so my improved fitness level will come in handy as we tackle 15 miles. And what do I think about all of this? I say: "Bring it on!"