One Week

So it’s come to this. One week from today, Saturday December 3rd, I will fuel my car and drive to Las Vegas. I have a two-night reservation (free! Thanks Corey!) at The Venetian. There will be no partying. There will be no negligence. I will be focused. On Sunday afternoon (more like early evening) I will run the Las Vegas marathon. That’s been the goal for the past seven months. I’ve been training for 17 weeks. Tomorrow begins week 18, my last three practice runs before the big event. I don’t know whether I should be giddy or panicked. I just know I’m going to start the race and pray to God I can finish it.

Eighteen weeks of training. Four days a week. That’s 72 runs, which have ranged from 3 miles on Day 1 to 20 miles on Day 60. All told, since August 1st I’ve run 426.1 miles. To give you an idea of just how far that is, it’s 266 miles from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. Since August I’ve run from Los Angeles to Phoenix, PLUS an additional fifty miles. If you’re on the East Coast, it’s about the same as running from New York City to the North Carolina border.

I’ve run Sunset Boulevard in LA. I’ve run countless laps around my old high school track. I’ve run treadmills on both coasts of the United States, and in Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, India. I’ve woken up at 5am to squeeze in a long run before work, and I’ve stayed out as late as midnight running fifteen and sixteen miles after working on my feet all day. I’ve done everything I possibly can to prepare myself, to stick to my training schedule, to keep myself healthy and fit, to get enough sleep when its needed, to force myself to eat and hydrate and help my body recover. I’ve let down my friends countless times due to running obligations. I’ve tried my hardest not to drink, not to replace burned calories with empty ones, and even though I’ve failed a few times I have no doubt that I am right now in the absolute best shape of my life. This goes lightyears beyond when I was playing tennis in high school and practicing three or four times a week as well as seeing a personal trainer twice a week.

In one week I’ll have reached the culmination of this experience. All the conditioning I’ve done will be put to the test. Both body and mind will be challenged. I might succeed, or I might not. Obviously it’s not the end of the world if something happens to prohibit me from attaining my goal, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say it’d really suck if I didn’t succeed.

I’m excited. I’m nervous. I don’t even think my brain knows what I’m feeling at a given moment. I’m trying not to think about where my head will be when I reach the starting line, or if/when I reach the finish line. I’m trying my hardest to block out all thoughts. I want to try to maintain a semblance of balance this week. Well, I guess more importantly I don’t want to freak out and have a breakdown. So…yeah! If anyone has any good advice for keeping a level head prior to a big important event, feel free to share it with me! Or, if you live in LA and want to hang out and talk about anything other than running (why does everyone HAVE to ask for a progress report every single time I see them!?) shoot me an e-mail. I’m free all week!

I’m sure I’ll post my thoughts again a week from today, and they’ll probably be much more manic and ridiculous…so at least you’ve got that to look forward to!

Cabaret Voltaire – Obsession