One Week To Go

The marathon is almost here. Exactly seven days from now I will hopefully find myself a little over half way through the course. Right now though, I find myself in the middle of the taper. While certainly enjoyable, it is a rather strange thing. I understand the biomechanics of why runners taper to the race, but it is completely counterintuitive... run like an utter dog for 13-14 weeks, decrease your workload down to a tiny fraction of what it was for 2-3 weeks, and then run further than you've run the entire duration of your training period-- completely bizarre. While a bit beyond logic, I'm not going to pretend that I now better than Runner's World, or the thousands of runners who successfully complete marathons using this formula. I will blindly trust that this is the recipe for success... well, relative success. I just want to finish-- God willing in a time that does not qualify me for 'slowest human being on earth'. Sure, Bolt may have been crowned the fastest man on earth this summer in Beijing, but can he compete with what this little gem of a title would be??

It's funny how everyone else on 'Team Schmelzer' (my loyal cheering section) seems to have more confidence about this foray into the unknown than I do. They all seem unnervingly confident that I will be able to do this. Fortunately, not everyone was there to see last weekend's 22-mile long run, which was quite ugly and not a real confidence booster heading into the final chapter of this deal. I would be a liar of the greatest proportions if I said I wasn't scared half-to-death right now. After all this time, effort, sleep deprivation, pain, etc. I just want to cross the finish line and end this in the best way possible. It's a marathon; there are no guarantees, but according to the program and Team Schmelzer, the countdown is on and apparently I'm ready (just don't ask my sweaty palms, dilated pupils, and elevated heart rate about my readiness).