three weeks to 'm' day.

Twenty-two miles. Done. Time to taper, and I. AM. HAPPY. I think tapering makes a lot of people nutso, but I don't think I've run enough marathons to get to that point. Plus I'm busy enough outside of marathon training, I'm not worried. Plus there's the cross training I plan to continue doing to keep my legs occupied. Moving on, early Saturday morning The Lawyer and I set off for our last long run. I was so nervous about doing the 22 miler that I couldn't sleep well at all the night before, I was race nervous. I'm not sure why, I think maybe it's partly to do with the fear of injury that is always looming in the back of my mind now. Constantly. Despite smart training, and feeling fantastic (for the most part) the entire training cycle, the evil little injury gnome is never far from my thoughts. Saturday was no exception.

In the end I had no reason to worry, our run was great, better than I was expecting in fact. It started out at 36 degrees in the cold dark morning and ended up sunny and windy at 67 degrees. I think we are both hoping that is what the weather in OKC will be. Even though it was a little windy Saturday (about 15 mph), it was bearable normal plains states windy, not last year OKC windy. As long as the wind is tempered, like it was on Saturday, during the marathon, I won't mind it a bit. It will be manageable. Those 22 were the confidence booster I've been needing for the race, and made me feel hopeful about redemption. I finished feeling like I could run another 4.2 if I needed to. That's all that mattered to me.

So I learned something on those 22 miles Interweb. Um, first off you should know we ran by cows. Yep, quite a few times, as we often do on a long run. I mean it's Kansas, and even though we live in a city, there are still random places that have cows, don't ask. Anyway, as we were running by them I was all... hey, do you think anyone has ever tried to ride a cow? Right. The Lawyer in all her infinite patience for me was all, well yes. They are called bulls. Mmm-hmm... proud Kansas girl. Right here. I was still confused, which was directed to Edder during a conversation last night. A conversation that he mentioned he'd like to pretend never happened. The conversation where we went round and round about cows and bulls and steers... and buffalo to get the whole situation sorted out in my 'bad Kansan' brain. HEY I didn't grow up on a farm! Let's just say I am now well educated on livestock. And interweb, people DO ride cows (shhhhh....they're called bullriders).

At least I know that half of 2.5 miles is NOT point of fact, 1.75, coughahemlawyer. Lesson, don't attempt math or thinking much after running 19.5 miles. Really, just don't attempt much of anything. Just give up, finish the run, then go get some chocolate milk.

Lastly. Even though I have Duke winning in my NCAA bracket (random last minute choice on my part), and even though there are five bags of Milanos on the line for me (um, our bracket consists of six runner girls who love good cookies, what did you expect?!), I'm still not so secretly hoping Butler wins. Because I'm hoping it's the year of the underdog. So far it's looking hopeful.