2 weeks to arrival...

It is now a short two weeks until I return to Lake Placid. That just seems impossible, even if the race is actually a week later this year. I'm definitely thankful for that extra week, because I think I'm going to need it! The training at this point always gets more and more mentally difficult to get in, especially when the weather is still unreasonably uninviting for July. I've had to wear arm warmers on the bike, I'm still always fighting chop if I choose to swim in the lake and more often than not I return from outdoor workouts with soaking wet shoes. I have a small air conditioner that I can put in my bedroom window if needed, and it is still just sitting in the basement. I'm not sure it ever even made it up all of last summer, either. Why do we keep getting cheated out of summer? My down comforter is even still on my bed, and the other night I kept the window closed so I wouldn't get too cold. Today the sun has finally returned, although it is only in the 60's. It's not October here. JULY. And now my biggest worry is that on July 26th in upstate New York it will suddenly be over 90 degrees out, which might completely melt me before I can even get halfway through the marathon. But anyway...

Training has been going ok. I've felt fairly sluggish and tired, with that muscle-burning feeling in all of my extremeties whenever I try to do anything resembling fast. My diet currently consists of very few things, namely: fruits, vegetables, egg whites, chicken cottage cheese and yogurt. So I've also been hungry, and consequently spend a LOT of time fantasizing about the things I'm going to eat once I cross the finish line. Also thinking about the glorious pancakes and other bread-type products I'll get to eat before the race to help with the carbo-loading. It's amazing how the simplest things like toast can make you salivate in anticipation.

In the days following the race, the foods I am going to do my best to get in, in no particular order: ice cream, nachos, brownies, cookies, Doritos, Sun Chips, tortilla chips, dark chocolate peanut butter (it exists and it is amazing) guacamole, and generally any baked goods, anything fried, smothered in cheese or composed mainly of sugar. We have a much more extensive list, but it is much too thorough to include here. And if in that week following the race any of you have any tasty treats in the house, the kind that you don't want to have lying around because you don't want to eat them all, send them to me. I will eat them all! Before I leave for Lake Placid, I will finish off any egg whites in the house and not eat them again for as long as possible. Of course, if all goes well, I will be back to eating them after a mere week of indulgence, but in the end it will be worth it. The good news is that after months of deprivation, I am finally almost back to a normal weight. Close enough that my official "skinny shorts" fit with ease. Good news for sure, but the next couple of weeks are still going to be tough. Tough, but tolerable.

It's sort of amazing to think about where I am now as compared to this time last year. First,
I'm probably at least 15 pounds lighter, if not more. I tended to avoid the scale for all of 2008 for obvious reasons. (it got a whole lot worse than that, as since November I've now lost about 35 pounds - a fact I'm not necessarily that proud of, because I never should've put on that much weight in the first place!) Nothing hurts. No injuries. My training has been uninterrupted since a slight knee issue in April. Last year I barely started running again at the beginning of May after 7 weeks off, and I just didn't have time to get it all in. My mental state was, well, not good. I knew I wasn't going to be able to race well. You just can't do that after not getting in the proper training. In short, I was a mess. I never thought I'd be back to where I am now, certainly not just within one year, but here I am. I'm not positive that it will turn out exactly the way it should, but I'm in a much better position at least to try....

Oh, I had to edit to add something I forgot that I want after the race: I want my birthday cake! Yes, I finally turned 30. Yes, you missed it. No use trying to do anything about it now, it was over two weeks ago. Needless to say, there was no birthday cake. It has been postponed, and darn it, I'll buy it for myself if I have to, but there will be cake! And perhaps a second, congratulatory cake, just to get in a couple of different kinds of cake...