With the completion of my last long run on Sunday, the hay- as the runners like to say- is in the barn!  I’ve done all I can and, barring serious divine intervention in the form of falling pianos or hurtling meteorites*, on July 25th, I’ll be running the San Francisco Marathon!

Scary thought, as I seriously started to doubt at the end of last year whether I’d ever see the day– yet, I made it through Higdon’s Novice marathon plan (with a few miles thrown in) without hiccup or foible, missed run or niggle.  Scarier still that I kind of like to royally bonk on at least one training run to “get it out of the way” and clear up my juju for race day… Usually, that hiccup or foible comes in the form of an injury so severe that I question whether I’ll be able to run the race at all, and inevitably delivers me to the line totally unprepared where I go on to surprise myself, earning me more than one accusatory “sandbagger.”

So, needless to say, July 25 will be a real “first” for me on several levels.

With the “hay in the barn,” the only thing to do between now and then is hunker down to get this last 3 lbs off for good… and spend an inordinate amount of time messing around with pace predictors, creating playlists, planning my outfit… doing crunches…  You know, important stuff.

*Just in case anyone “up there” reads this blog, NO, that is not a challenge!