The Home Stretch

11 days from now, I'll be done with Marathon #13. I feel great. My comfortable pace has significantly improved during this training cycle. The weather forecast looks perfect.

And of course I'm totally freaking out. It's ONLY 11 days away. Wasn't it just yesterday that I still had like 3 months to train?

My training is pretty much done. I can't do much more to improve my readiness, but I can certainly screw it up. I tested out a quicker pace on my last long run, a 13 miler on Sunday, and it was comfortable even at the end with race pace miles. My average heartrate for the 9:22 overall pace run was only 137. Yesterday morning I ran a few more race pace miles within our team's 6 mile tempo run, and even though I actually ran them too fast (seriously??) my heart rate stayed in the low 140's during those miles. IT WAS NOT HARD TO RUN AT ALL.

Last 2+ hour run of the cycle

Race pace tempo run

I need to keep remembering how all of this feels, that race pace is not a big deal to me, that I'm perfectly capable of dialing into that pace during my race and being okay. I really need to remember that I can run a marathon probably much faster than a 3:52 if I tried even harder. Because I can. Every single data point is telling me this.

And I need to STOP remembering that if I run my stretch goal, I will have taken an entire minute off my pace from my PR marathon. I need to STOP telling myself that people just don't do that. Because I'm perfectly capable to doing that. I made it my goal, I did the work, and the glory is right in front of me to take.

But I'm still slightly terrified at the prospect. I don't want to fall short of my goal. I want to finally be able to call myself a good marathoner.

ELEVEN DAYS!!