Training Week #27

I'm in the home stretch! At this time next Sunday I will be crossing the finish line in Long Beach and making my way over to a pancake victory breakfast down on the water.

I've been so incredibly distracted by work and other factors the last month, that this entire goal of mine has become more of a burden than the accomplishment it's supposed to be. I've been too exhausted after work to run during the week, which makes it that more difficult to get up and do long runs on Sundays. And those first 5 minutes of the first mile have always been the worst. Especially at 7 am, when the cloud cover is still thick over the water and all you want is a hot cup of coffee and to NOT be running.

When I first decided to do this, I got off on the disbelief on people's faces when I told them I was training for a marathon (and I have trained for an entire marathon, even if I'm only running half). Slowly but surely, as I hit a new personal record every week in either distance or time, it became less of a shock to me that I can now run 13.1 miles. I mean, can't everyone do that? It's really not that big a deal. I swear.

We were on our last practice run this morning, down in our usual Venice Beach location, when my running buddy and I came up on a group of 3 middle-aged men. They could tell by our singlets that we're in training and asked how long our run was today. We told them that since the race is next week, this was just a short 6 miles. They laughed in disbelief of 6 miles being a short run and wished us luck as we passed them.

I still remember when running a full two miles was a major triumph. Now I can do a 5K before breakfast and not even think about it (that's 3.1 miles for the metrically-impaired).

It's also interesting who your random supporters become. Of course, my friends have been wonderful. One sat me down at a party just to tell me how proud she is of me. It almost made me cry (but I'd also had 5 beers, so we'll blame the sentimentality on that). The rest donated gobs of money. Such good kids.

But it's been you guys that have amazed me. My readers were responsible for nearly $500 of my total fundraising. You don't even know me and I didn't promise you anything but good karma! That's really just awesome.

And today the clerk at 7-11, where I've stopped every Sunday morning at 6:45 am for the last 5 months to pick up water and a Powerbar, told me he's really impressed with me. Then there was those three guys down on the beach, cheering us on. And the homeless people we'd see every week, trying to get us to laugh as we made our way down to Marina del Rey and back (hey, it's only 8 miles).

I'm going to remember all that in Long Beach next week. It's what's going to keep me going.

7 days!!