six days to chicago.

Hold on a second, I need to go throw up thanks to writing out that title. Okay, all good. This is going to be short and sweet, no mileage listings (i don't have time to go back and look right now), or waxing poetic about what's to come and what's been, or sharing just how scared I might be (i'm admitting nothing). Just putting it out there that Chicago is in six days (what? like the entire universe isn't revolving around the chicago marathon?)

I'm taking off Friday and will be heading to the glorious city of Chicago (i really love that city) with some amazing friends and family for five days. I've had my ups and downs the past week, and for now I'm just trying to focus on staying positive, not letting the demons from OKC get in my head, staying healthy, resting and focusing on running a race with some incredible and fun women who I love dearly.

Although I don't leave until Friday for the windy city, it feels like the festivities are starting sooner. My dear friend Lea who means the world to me, and who we bonded strongly over bad marathons past, moved to California last winter. Wichita hasn't been the same since she left, but she is coming 'home' tomorrow and I get to spend the next week pretending that she lives here again and that life is back to how it was when she was here. I think I'm more excited about that for the week than anything else.

My week is going to be hectic, I have no idea if I'll even post again before I leave. Although I want to since I got to finally run the Rosstoberfest 5K on Saturday, it was important for me to run it (i've been on crutches the past two years and couldn't race it) since it's in my neighborhood and goes right by my house. I didn't PR or do anything fantastic, just ran at a comfortable pace with my original running buddy Katie. Regardless it was a special race for me and dang it I wanna write about it.

For now, I'm going to try and settle my nervous and excited belly and focus. Realize I've trained and done the work, now I just have to trust and have faith it will pay off and ignore the tweaky aches and pains that are hopefully mostly in my fluffy little head. I'm going to focus on the amazing trip I'm about to take, on getting everything done to leave in time, on the precious time I'll have with my girlfriends, and running one of the best marathons in the world. And hopefully running it well, you know, like a virgin marathon (i'm reclaiming my marathon virginity by the way, the last two just don't count anymore, i deem it so, and so it is). In fact, I am now inspired to slap some Madonna on my marathon playlist... Cheers to running my third marathon for the first time.

Happy Monday interwebs, take care of yourselves this week and get ready for those races next Sunday!