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After a typical restless night of pre-race sleep, I finally get up 3 minutes before my 5:00 am alarm and my first thought is crystal clear: “this is the morning of the New York Marathon.”

No foggy mind; no stumbling to the bathroom. Instead I pop out of bed and my legs feel straight as steel beams, feet anchored to the floor with railroad spikes. My heart is pounding and I look down at Jesse, still in bed.

“Jesse,” I whisper. “Its time to get ready to race.”

Breakfast: 5:30am

With my race-day bag packed and slung over my shoulder, Jesse and I ride the elevator with Jere Longman, reporter from the New York Times. “Did you get any sleep?” he asks.

I can’t remember. My mind is blank. “Enough,” I reply.

The lights are bright and the decorations sparse as the three of us walk into the Hilton conference room for catered breakfast. Round tables are half filled with focused athletes and their partners or coaches. The hum of voices is barely loud enough to cover the farting sound of my ladle dipping into the vat of gooey oatmeal before plopping it into a mug-sized bowl.  As I scan the porridge toppings, all I can think about is which things won’t make me have to poop in the race. Raisins are definitely not safe. Milk is risky. Brown sugar it is.

The butterflies in my stomach make me feel full after three bites but I power through. I spot Kim Smith at the next table and take the seat next to her.

“Kim, how do I know if I’ve eaten enough for a marathon? How much did you eat?”

“I usually ask other people the same thing,” she jokes. “I had two bowls of oatmeal and a banana.”

“Shit. I only had one small bowl and I’m stuffed.”

“You should eat some more if you can,” she warns.

Being that Kim just ran the fastest half marathon ever on American soil, I plop another wad of gruel in the bowl, but I still can’t manage more than one slimy bite.

Last Minute Details

Its 6:00 and we’re passing through the unbelievably crowded lobby to pick up a coffee and get on the bus. One final bag check and I realize I forgot to cut the lining out of my race top so it wouldn’t squeeze my ribcage too much (big ribs). We decide to divide and conquer: Jesse gets the coffee and I track down a pair of blunt scissors from the bellman and start hacking away. A stick would have been equally useful. I realize I’m not breathing.

The Bus Ride

As I walk toward the buses, orange cloaked people are running toward me in a panic, “Where have you been?” they exclaim. I look at my watch and its 6:22. The buses are set to depart at 6:30 but I’m the last one on. If this were a track meet, I’d be early!  Whoopsie.

Walking down the center isle past all my settled competitors I spot my OTC Teammate “Skip” sitting alone. As soon as I plop down next to her skinny frame, she Dumbledore’s me and strikes the nervousness out with one bewitching smile. For an hour we watch the sun pink the sky and silver the water as New York City’s collective pulse gravitates toward Staten Island.

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I’m so pumped. Like WAY pumped. In fact, I need to get less pumped because its 9pm and the race is in 12 hours.

After all the training and the knee-freak-out and the desperate medical treatment; after the packing and traveling and time zone differences; after the press conferences and media appearances and technical meetings…its finally here.

THE NEW YORK CITY MARATHON BABY!

47,000 people will wake up with me at 5am tomorrow and cram some oatmeal into their fluttering stomachs. We’ll triple check that we have everything we need before boarding buses to Staten Island. We’ll convince ourselves we are standing on a hot beach in Mexico to stop the full body shivering from the low 40′s temps until we finally get on with the bloody thing.

Other than that, I have no idea what will happen. I’ve received some great advice from you guys so I feel much more prepared than most first timers, but my own marathon experience awaits.

Am I nervous? It comes in waves. My right hand is twitching while I write this, so yeah, this would be one of those waves. I try to acknowledge it and then let it pass through me. Mostly I’m excited because I feel I have nothing to lose. Its an adventure–a new experience, and I’m starting to appreciate how valuable new experiences are.

For 9 weeks I’ve trained like a marathoner (at least for me) and I’ve already achieved what I set out to do when I signed up for this thing. This race itself is the reward.

If you want to stay updated on the race tomorrow you can watch it live on Universal Sports. There is a tape delayed highlight show on NBC from 2-4pm Eastern. Jesse will be tweeting updates throughout the race as well (which is your best bet if you are my family or friends who don’t like running and only want to know how I’m doing).

The more I think about it, the more my right hand twitches and my heart races, so in the name of settling down to sleep I’ll finish this post with a photographic story of my New York Marathon Experience so far, and tomorrow I’ll give you the post-race breakdown. Just know that no matter what happens, I’ll be happy with it because I’ll do my best out there. Thanks a million for all the supportive comments this week you guys. You’ve really lifted me up for the challenge.

At the press conference, I had seven times as many people asking me questions as you'd find at a track meet (yes there are exactly seven people at the table; easy math). Turns out the media likes marathons.

Scoping out the finish line, where I was approached by the one and only Jere Longman about a story for the NY Times and nearly peed my pants.

Very excited to find out my knee is behaving after treatment from Jon Murray at home and a stop to see John Ball in Phoenix.

Lots of grubbin. Nobody loves food more than Jesse.

This is me at Nike Town attempting to give marathon advice to other runners when I've never done one. They went easy on me.

At the gorgeous NYRR fundraiser dinner on Thursday, the highlight for me (other than meeting the amazing Tegla Leroupe) was witnessing pizza hanging from hooks.

Hanging out with Meggie's Running Club at the West Side YMCA.

Went for a run on Friday in Central Park and it was so beautiful I pushed some newlyweds out of the shot and asked their photographer for a photo.

Hanging out with Megan and lots of really great people at the pre-race Runner's World Party. Must say that was the best-dressed group of people who work in the running industry I've ever seen. And here I am in the same red dress from the hanging pizza NYRR function the night before. Nice.

Went to a water bottle filling/decorating party with the other pros. Mine are covered in Picky Bar stickers and Believe I Am stickers of course, and I'll pick one up every 5k from "Table 8 Position 2" amid a bunch of other bottles.

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Its been over a week since my last post, which completely goes against my “one post every day until the marathon” thing. This is what happens when a runner gets an injury scare. Its called burying your head in the sand. Heard of it? I bet you have.

I have, in fact, learned quite a few things since my knife-in-the-knee experience last Friday. But when I originally set out to write a daily light bulb, I was healthy and on a roll, envisioning composing my daily blog about the positive and humorous parts of the marathon world I was discovering.

And then BOOM!

Bye bye speed bumps, hello brick wall, and just like that I’m flailing around like one of those crash test dummies.

After taking last weekend off to heal up and doing all the treatment on my schedule, I’ve had some completely pain free days and some holy shit days. The days that it hurts are definitely no fun and I immediately pretend I don’t have a marathon coming up. Stress and pressure don’t help the healing process.

I was kind of waiting until this knee thing totally cleared up before writing a new blog post, thinking that the topic would be about how to (or how not to) manage a last minute injury before a marathon. Long story short, I don’t have an answer, I haven’t processed it on a bigger scale yet, and I’m just living day to day.

A couple bits I do want to share from this past week:

• ALF commenter and NY Marathon entry MBS is having a twin knee problem at the moment, and its been helpful to have another person going through it at the same time.
• Active Release Therapy (ART) hurts like a mother.
• Sometimes its impossible to determine if your pain comes from your back, your knee, your hip, or your mind.
• Even the remote possibility that your body might not cooperate on the day of the marathon is horrifying.
• I liked it much better when I felt invincible.
• Getting to the starting line 100% ready to go is a really tough thing to do.

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Reality Check

Yesterday was Friday, and it was the last hard workout of the last hard week before staring to taper. Am I pumped? You betcha!

So what happens?

My leg falls off of course.

Halfway through the workout, my left knee decides it doesn’t want to bend anymore (at least not without the accompanying sensation of a knife stabbing into it). Yeah, I’m freaking out. Jogging is fine, but fast running is very very bad.

Experience tells me to calm down, ditch the workout, jog home, and get it loosened up pronto. So I’m jogging home and on the final stretch even jogging becomes a major problem. So I’m walking the final 200 meters to my house and even walking gets complicated. My knee simply doesn’t want to bend, like its not getting the signal, and when I consciously make it bend, it hurts (like wow hurts).

I’m on the verge of panicking and my mind is racing.

What the hell have I done? Where did this come from? I’ve never felt something this sharp and quick before, and there was no warning! I think I want to panic now. Why am I not panicking right now?

Totally weird thing happened: the panic never surfaced completely. Something told me it was just a freak thing–probably a pinched nerve, or something out of alignment. The pain was temper-tantrum-worthy for sure, but the problem wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Right?

As I fairly calmly dragged my rod-straight left leg up the stairs to my house, I actually started laughing out loud at the image of how a 22-year-old me would have reacted to this situation (thrashing around on my bed, inconsolably bemoaning the end of my running career). I decided to try to hang on to logic as long as possible, and logic told me to call Jack Magic.

Jack got me in for a massage within a half hour (life saver that he is) and calmly listened to me explain my symptoms. I know I had a crazy look in my eye, but Jack’s pulse didn’t so much as quicken for a second. He methodically worked through the potential problem areas and within an hour I could walk again. All that remained was a little bit of instability and tightness in my lower back: nothing a day or two off couldn’t fix. Looks like I’d be going into my taper hard.

The Edge

During my day off today, I started thinking about just how dangerous this place is in marathon training: the edge between the build and the taper.

For seven weeks I’ve been filling and filling and filling a water balloon without any problems, and suddenly I see that the skin of that balloon is stretched dangerously thin.

Now here I am carrying this swollen balloon towards the promised land of the taper, aware that the slightest bump from the dullest branch can irreparably rupture what it would have taken a machete to pop five weeks ago.

Yikes!

Big time yikes.

After taking today off and feeling better, I could probably do my normal Sunday run and be fine, but there is no way in hell I’m running tomorrow! Instead, my balloon and I are going to spend the day on my cushy sofa watching movies. I’m going to whip out some duct tape to reinforce the skin and let a little water out. Then I’ll feel a little safer carrying the water balloon the rest of the way to New York City, starting Monday.

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Ok so I’ve been training for about 6 weeks for the marathon.

Here is the percentage of time I have felt the following ways:

Extremely tired: 30%

Pooped: 20%

Superhuman: 10%

Oh-my-God-I’m-injured: 7%

Confident that I’m on track: 25%

Why am I doing this: 3%

Normal: 5%

In case you are wondering, this is what "exhausted" looks like

And this is "pooped."

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When you’ve never done a marathon, it is scary as s%#!

But there is a beautiful moment, after slogging away for weeks, when what once seemed impossible is suddenly within your reach.

I’m sure this moment can happen anytime: after completing a grueling tempo run alone; while circling a weekly mileage total; during the last mile of that first 20 miler; in hearing yourself explain your reason for doing the marathon to a friend…

Something changes in a moment and you know:

I can run a marathon.

For me, that moment came while cooling down from a 60 minute progressive tempo run at Dexter Reservoir just outside Eugene, Oregon.

When did you know?

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I’ve run for 16 years now and until three weeks ago, I had perfect feet.

Okay, yeah I’ve had four stress fractures, so the internal mechanics leave something to be desired, but from just looking at ‘em, people have literally told me,

“Damn! Those are some good looking feet! Especially for a distance runner.”

You are now probably trying to imagine a scenario where an actual person would tell another person something like that. These are just people who work with feet ok? I’m not lying. My feet are awesome.

Well, were awesome.

Now not so much.

Yeah, that would be a hairy toe knuckle. Don't judge. I live in Eugene.

• It’s not the mileage (I ran more in college than I’m running now).
• It’s not the shoes (Same Nikes I’ve worn forever, same size).
• It’s not the hygiene (I may be overdue for a pedicure, but my dogs are groomed to a normal standard).

This foot isn't as bad, but that second toe hurts like a mother right now. It's one of those deep blisters that's connected to a nerve that gives you a headache if you touch it. You don't want to pop a blister like that.

The Cause?

I’m blaming those ridiculous long runs and the fact that workouts take FOREVER now. Extended time on my feet in one shot, four days a week. Very few doubles. Doubles, FYI, prevent you from having ugly feet. Now I know.

And now I finally understand why distance runners so often rock the closed toed shoes.

The upside?

At this rate maybe I won’t have to spring for these shoe covers for my zombie Halloween costume:

Tell me these things aren't awesome.

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In 21 days, this 5k runner will be standing on the starting line of the NY Marathon, about to run 26.2 miles for the first time in my life (as hard as I can).

Hot damn!

For these final three weeks of marathon prep, my goal is to share at least one thing every day that has come to my attention as a result of training for my first marathon (the good, bad, and the strange). It might only be a sentence or two some days, but I want to write something. I’m sure you veterans out there will let me know which things are normal and which things certify me as a Fleshmaniac.

Today’s illumination is that marathon training makes me brain dead after 8pm, making it very difficult to write a meaningful blog. But what the hell. I’m still going to try to explain how the following tweet rocked my world on Friday as I prepared for a big weekend of training:

In track and field, I feel more or less alone as I prepare for a big event. For example, in Daegu at the World Track Championships there were 23 women in the entire world on the same wavelength as me. Everyone else was on the outside, experiencing the event as a spectator. This isn’t a bad thing, its just the way it is in spectator sports.

So for the first six weeks of training for NY, I was going about my prep the same as all my other track races: with the feeling that I’m pretty much alone out there in what I’m trying to achieve. My loneliness was exacerbated by the fact that all my OTC Elite teammates were enjoying nice, long, post-season breaks, drinking margaritas and happily getting out of shape, and here I was pounding the pavement farther and faster than ever before.

But then Mary Wittenberg goes and writes that tweet and I’m practically knocked off my desk chair with a revelation: There are literally tens of thousands of people doing what I’m doing right now. They are preparing for their biggest long run before their marathon. And they have been building up to it for weeks, just like me.

This changed everything in an instant. Back when I was suffering from a week of sore quads during the beginning of my build up, when my calluses started accumulating, when my toenails started peacing out, there were thousands of people going through that same thing at that time. This might seem totally obvious to you guys, but it was revolutionary for me: this feeling that I was part of a mass movement of humans from all walks of life who randomly decided to run the NYC Marathon for a myriad of reasons.

Every day, all these strangers are trying to eat better and sleep more and talk themselves out the door on dead legs, temporarily structuring their life “like a marathoner” to accomplish a goal.

What an incredibly beautiful thing.

While I may have felt alone in what I was trying to achieve, I am not alone in the literal sense. Jesse is always there for me, willing to help however he can. This is a ridiculous photo, by the way. He's too good looking in it. I'm losing concentration here.

Coach Rinker biked alongside me on those first few scary tempo runs and is always game to help out.

Jack fights fires with his massage techniques.

Ian Cronin has been building some base for track season so we can run together now and then.

Buddies like Nick and Craig are always game for a run, especially when pancakes are involved.

And then there is the big cheese Coach Row on the bike and his assistant Max running alongside us as we attempt the "big girl workouts" in these final weeks.

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 A quote I heard from a friend (original source unknown):

“How do you get good judgement?”

“From experience.”

“Oh. How do you get good experience?”

“From bad judgement.”

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I really don’t know where to start here.

If I hadn’t just checked my calendar and done the math, I would have guessed I had only been home for a week. An insanely packed week. In reality it has been 20 days.

Click here to see more hilarity regarding Jesse and friends.

The first week I was concentrating on being Mrs. Thomas to support my triathlete husband as he competed in the Half Ironman World Championships. During his breakout Pro year, I’d only been able to see him race once (the Duck Bill Thrill), and otherwise stayed updated with skype calls and his hilarious, multimedia online race reports. It was great to support him, see him in his element, and finally meet all the new friends I’d heard him talk about while I was away in Europe for nine weeks. Triathlon peeps be rad.

kitchen upgrades

But once that race was over, I came home to a real awakening. The other projects I am involved in had bloated and swelled while I was away and some things were on the verge of bursting. Picky Bars (new website) sales increased 150% in one month, and Jenn, our amazing Director of Operations, looked like her head was going to pop off if we didn’t hire some help and upgrade our production methods. We decided it was time to totally revamp the entire kitchen, buy equipment, and hire three new employees. Exciting stuff!

Every night before bed, filling in this journal we created makes me very very happy.

One thousand training diaries that I had spent a year creating with my friend Ro McGettigan arrived at last from our green printer, and we needed to figure out how to get the word out about them and get systems in place for people to buy them before Ro went into labor (she just had her baby this week: a beautiful baby girl, Hope.)

My natural tendency is to fill my cup to the point of overflowing. I’ll just keep on pouring it in until I flood the whole damn kitchen. I’ve been that way since high school when I was taking five honors classes alongside cross country and working at In-N-Out Burger. I’d like to blame my parents for this but they are reasonable, laid back people who were always telling me to “chill the F out.” Since becoming a pro runner, I’ve had to learn to be extremely choosy about what to pour in my cup (I no longer waste my efforts on things that I’m not passionate about like I did in high school). I don’t like to be busy for the sake of being busy, but alas, for me to be “fulfilled,” I need to be “full” and “filled”.

Enter the NY Marathon…

Originally, I signed up to run NY Marathon back when I was 8th at USA’s with no chance of competing at Worlds in Daegu. Then when I was added to the USA roster, I decided I still wanted to give NY a go since I had my heart set on it. People kept saying things like “Oh, you’ll never want to train for that after you come down from the high at Worlds,” and “Are you effing crazy?” You know, supportive things like that.

marathon workouts be hard

The funny thing is, in the 20 days since Worlds, I haven’t regretted my decision to run NY once. My volume has climbed from 60 to 70 to 80 (with extra time on the ElliptiGo to supplement), and the new workouts I’ve been doing have been hard but super fun. The new challenge and stimulus is exactly what I imagined I’d enjoy. Motivation isn’t an issue. However, now that I’m at my peak mileage, training will start to accumulate and if I don’t get my other projects organized, I’ll be overstretched in no time (hello colds, injuries, and overtraining symptoms).

All energy comes from the same well. Some activities fill the well, while others drain it. I’ve got one more week to tackle the draining parts of my other jobs and then I’ll need to be very selective until November 6th when I finally get to race through the five boroughs of the most incredible city I’ve ever laid eyes on.

After so many weeks overseas relying on others to cover me, I’ve enjoyed getting my hands dirty and running errands. It feels exactly like the first two weeks of school where your to-do list is enormous while you set up your structures, systems, and routines. After a summer break, you welcome the load, and even flirt with the idea of taking a drawing class just for fun. And then reality sets in and you have to trim the fat off of your schedule to survive. Bye bye drawing class.

This week will be a struggle for me while I make that transition. I need to make some decisions quickly to get things in order. Libras hate making decisions.

Just for Fun (very optional reading)

I always wish I could sneak a peak at other people’s “To-Do Lists” to get a feel for their job/life. Just for fun, here are some sample items from mine over the past two weeks. Almost all of it is done now, thank goodness

• open two months of mail
• buy used Hobart Mixer from Craigslist (why the hell is it only $600?!) before the Cuisinart dies and we’re screwed.
• metal shelving for Picky Bar storage
• find marathon training partner for long runs
• Ask Lauren comments
• open pandora’s box of emails and voicemails
• test out new Hobart Mixer (yay!) and adjust recipes for new capacity
• send thank you Believe I Am training journals to the women that contributed quotes
• press release for Training Journal
• research how to make a press release (?!)
• take broken “bargain” Hobart Mixer to repair shop (holy cow it weighs 150 pounds)
• what the heck am I going to wear as racing shoes in NY?! Its a MARATHON! Contact Nike.
• take measurements to re-do Picky Bar work space
• research and buy new work tables for food production
• buy a bunch of storage containers and organization stuff
• contact “Girls on the Run” about donating a % of Believe I Am profits.
• call the fam
• Call Rinker to see if he’ll time my workouts
• Physio appointments
• Blood test for iron levels
• decide what I want to do for my 30th birthday and 4th anniversary
• organize the horror that is my desk
• take back all new storage containers and organization stuff that didn’t work
• find receipts for storage containers that were on my desk before “organizing” it.
• remove the chandelier that everyone has banged their head on while making bars for the last year

You’ve gotta love the items that fight their way back onto the list, no matter what you do! What’s the most random thing on your to-do list?

For those of you who have written in to the site, know that I appreciate you reaching out and commenting, even if I haven’t replied. In many cases, the informed readers on this site have been awesome about sharing their knowledge and experiences and helping one another out. I have directly benefited from the advice of many of you, and if I haven’t told you personally yet, thanks!

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