Ready
I am sitting down to eat lunch, nervously wiggling my toes and trying to still the butterflies in my stomach and the adrenaline racing through my body. I haven’t been this nervous about a race since my track and cross-country days in high school.
It has been a LONG road to get here, beginning with submitting an entry to the lottery back in 2009. On April 3, 2010, my suspicion that I was pregnant was confirmed; a mere 4 days later, on April 7, I found out that I was one of the lucky lottery winners and had a slot for the 2010 NYC marathon. Obviously that wasn’t going to happen. After deferring my entry, I spent over a year telling people, “I don’t know where I’ll be living after Caleb graduates, but I know for sure I’ll be in NYC on Sunday, November 6, 2011!”
Then, in late January of this year, about 6.5 weeks after Maria’s birth, I began running again. Miles were slow and felt long, but by mid-summer, I had shed all but the last few pounds of baby weight and was ready to start training in earnest.
I used an official training plan this time (Hal Higdon’s Intermediate II), with some slight modifications, so my training kicked off on July 10. Since then, I have completed runs in Germany, Georgia, Alabama, DC, Virginia, and Maryland, logging 556.5 miles in heat, rain, wind, dark, cold, humidity, and more. I have trained harder for this race than for any in a long time.
And now, two days before the race, I am READY. Ready to run my heart out. Ready to run a PR, but also ready for the fact that it just may not be my day. Ready to take a 5 AM bus to Staten Island. Ready to spend 3 hours pre-race with Dad and KK hanging out in the cold. Ready to have fun. Ready to hurt. Ready to run 26.2 miles through the streets of New York City.
See you at the finish.
