Day 80

Day 80! Even as I wrote it in the title, I was thinking, "Wow, really?" and found myself counting the days on my calendar. I can not believe how fast the past 80 days have gone. I'm no longer running for distance at this point in my training schedule. I'm running a set amount of time for each run this week and I only have one 20 minute run left, which I plan on completing tonight. It is really hard for me to comprehend the fact that after three months of training, this whole thing is almost over. I'm excited for my race on Sunday but I'm somewhat sad at the same time. It's a bittersweet feeling. I've worked so hard and moved so fast for this one day, this one experience. I know I can run more races and do this again, but first experiences are special. There are feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, fear and excitement that are never present, at least not in the same way, with second, third, or fiftieth experiences. I wish I could have somehow slowed the last three months down. I wish I could have found a way to better savor the moments, good and bad, challenging and easy, peaceful and distressing. It's going to be difficult for me to wind down for the next few weeks as my life slowly returns to normal.

I ran the Gazelle Sports Bridge Run on Sunday and did really well (for me at least). My official time was 29:17 which is about four minutes better than my race times last fall. It was nice to be around other runners and I was able to somewhat prepare for the racing environment. There were just over 1000 runners on Sunday and I'll be running with about 14,000 people next Sunday. I'm not sure the two environments can be appropriately compared. I can't wait to be at the starting line. It feels like I'm a kid waiting for Christmas. At this point, I am going to just sit back and enjoy the ride. No more worries, no more fears.