4 weeks to 'm' day.

Oh wow. Four weeks, no wait, actually 27 days to be exact. I may have slightly jinxed myself on Friday by admitting I'm doing the full marathon, not in the way I expected (i.e. injury). But in the way that by Friday at noon I was a sniffling, shivering, tingly skinned mess of a girl. I left work a little early, came home and proceeded to sleep and rest almost the entire weekend. I barely had the energy to eat that bag of Milano's so you know it must have been bad.

I only worked for half a day today and am feeling much better. I don't know if it was allergies or something else, but it sure did knock me out. So I didn't work out for three entire days. Which to some, that may not be a big deal. But to a girl a month away from potential marathon redemption, it's HUGE. However I had a make-up run today (make-up runs are the best kind of runs, right?!) that went really well. Except I'm noticing that lately the first four miles of any run I do are just brutal. Anyone have thoughts on why that is? Once I pass four? I'm good, but until I reach that point of four (or sometimes five) it takes everything I have to not just give up and go home.

The Lawyer and I are planning on a nice leisurely 22 miler on Saturday bright and early, we don't want to run Easter Sunday, so Saturday it is. The bummer about that is that it falls on the day of a great local 10K race that we will have to miss. I almost pouted. Then realized I'm saving myself a race fee. And a crappy logo'd t-shirt I'll never wear. For a race I wouldn't really be able to go out and "race" considering the miles I'd have to run the day after it, and the fact that it's at the park I run at on a regular basis and it would be like any other run I have there, only with hundreds of other people, and got over it. However, all of that, the race, the 22 miles, started me thinking about where I was at this point in training last year. And it wasn't a good place.

I'm sure any outsider reading my blog last year was thinking, this girl is asking for disaster trying to run that marathon. By this time last year I was doing zero cross training, and was in pain for every. Single. RUN. All of them. I was hobbling around 100% of the time, running or not. Trying to ignore the pain. That only got me so far, in fact it got me as far as running the 10K at the Easter Sun Run last year. Then I didn't run another step until the day before the marathon.

I was thinking about that fact almost exclusively today on my sunny and warm (oh it was glorious) run this afternoon. How I was so unprepared physically and mentally for that marathon last year. The differences in my condition (physical and mental) this year are like night and day. The fact that I will actually be able to run the three weeks leading up to this marathon? That alone makes a huge difference. That and calming words have me in a good mental place for this upcoming marathon, a place I'd like to stay. And am going to work very hard to maintain the next 27 days.

For tonight, I'm working on my marathon playlist and getting more excited by the minute in doing so. I am reminding myself of all the positives over last year going into this year's 'm'. Like how I know the course really well (second year for the marathon, third year doing the OKC race in general), I know where it's going to suck and how to deal with those parts. I also know the hills.... oh the hills, which will seem minor to anyone who doesn't live in Kansas, wait no, who doesn't live in Southern or Western Kansas. But to those of us in the flatland, not so easy. All of this is to say that this year I have a plan for the race (unlike last year which was basically run, pray, survive), I'm going in thinking about it more than I did last year.

Overall I'm feeling good and positive about the OKC Marathon now, in fact I'm looking forward to it. Not in the nervous way, in the excited, ready to see what it holds and hopeful I'll get that redemption kind of way. Of course I'm a roller coaster, we'll see how I feel in a few days. But for now? I'm in a good spot. Finally. And it's oh so relaxing and calming and good.