Random Thoughts

Let the weekend begin!

Well, not quite, but sorta. Eric is trying to pull his race gear together and pack - he has to go into work tomorrow till noon-ish. He wants to be ready to hit the road when he gets home. He and Steve are going down to the Portland area to run Autumn Leaves. Eric is running 50 miles, Steve and Rob are running 50k, and Olga will be in charge of Race Central. The race is on a five mile loop - and Olga will be the official center of it all - marking their laps for them and handing out fuel. Olga is also hosting Eric, Steve and another Maniac, Van, tomorrow night. She's saving Eric and Steve from camping out in the car or in a tent, which is awfully nice considering it is pouring buckets around here. Hopefully, the rain will wear itself out tonight and tomorrow and give them a break on Saturday. For that matter, I hope it gives me a break on Sunday.

The weather here has been all over the place this week. We've had brilliantly sunny and clear days with lows of 23 and highs right around 54. I was running in tights, two shirts, my vest, arm warmers and a fleece hat. This morning we had temps of 43 and pouring rain. Shift to one shirt, vest, arm warmers, shorts and baseball cap. We haven't had wind yet, though it was predicted. And I will say again, I love running in fall weather - including the rain - but that doesn't mean I want it to rain during a 5-6 hour marathon.

I don't have to go into work tomorrow till 1:00. I've got a two hour meeting, and that's it. Since Eric is leaving work early, he'll have the car instead of riding the train (the train runs in the early morning and evening, but not mid-day) which means I'm walking to work. If I take a short cut it's less than a mile to walk, so no biggie. In fact, I keep thinking I should walk in whenever I don't have to go to one of the preschools - at the very least it would be twice a week. I'm not sure why I haven't done it. Lazy, I guess. Anyway, having a two hour work day tomorrow will be nice. I'm skipping the Saturday morning run in favor of extra sleep and just joining the run group for coffee. Lazy again.

Sunday is marathon day, and once again, I have goals. One - not going out too fast, or getting caught up in the faster pace of my running buddies. Two - slowest time goal: 5:45. Three - better time goal: 5:30. Four - best of all time goal: 5:15. Five - blister free toes!

When we did our 20 mile training run a while back, for some reason I loved the thought that we were running from Puyallup to Tacoma. Somehow, running from town to town really solidifies the distance in my mind. I'm just as excited about Sunday's race - running from Kent to West Seattle - it seems like so much more than running 26.2 miles. Probably because I am terrible at gauging distances, but town-to-town gives me something concrete to measure against. Plus, I will admit that it makes more of an impact on non-runners. Running to Tacoma? Running to Seattle? It gives me a little thrill when I see the shock on their faces. On Sunday, when I reach that mental point where I think that the run will never end, I'll try to remind myself how cool and exciting running between two towns is. Maybe it'll help pull me in.