24K on Saturday, October 10th

Wow - it's been a bit since I last wrote. Time flies!

As I write this, it is saying there are 9 days, 10 hours, 25 minutes and 20 seconds left until the start.

Am I ready? Who knows!!

I was supposed to run 32K on Sunday, October 11th. However, I was in San Diego for my friend BJ's wedding. He and Laurel were married at a spectacular ocean front mansion in La Jolla, California. Check out this aerial view of the property - http://tinyurl.com/laurelandbj

Anyhow - I decided that I should run the morning of the wedding rather than the Sunday afterwards. Even though I had sworn off drinking for the month of October - here I was in sunny San Diego, on a boat cruise the night before the wedding... I mean, come ON! So, a few "Light" American beers aren't going to hurt anyone. I had a couple and I was good to go.

The next morning I really dreaded having to run. It was very warm out and I had no fuel and I was supposed to run 32K. I couldn't even find a sports shop in the are to buy power bars.. I was also in a bit of a time crunch because we were being escorted to the wedding on chartered buses and I couldn't miss that. So I grab my water belt and took off. I figured I'd run 16K in one direction and then just turn around and I'd hit 32K. Around the 10K mark I figured I wasn't going to make it to 16K in time to get back to the hotel to shower, change and make the bus. I hit 12K and turned around, hit the shower back at the Hard Rock, grabbed a couple of bagels to go for Suzanne and I at Maryjane's Coffee Shop, walked to the bus (Ran into the wedding party into the lobby...I was a tad behind..) and was good to go.

The Garmin readout from my watch is pretty cool because it shows San Diego Bay and the Pacific Ocean, etc. as part of my route -



I definitely noticed the lack of fuel but was EXTREMELY proud of myself for getting out there and running it on a vacation like that.

Last weekend was another story... I was in Las Vegas last weekend and I brought all my gear and was ready to rock another 24K. But, I've been having this serious kink in my neck that has my left arm throbbing with numbness. It was also about 80 degrees in Vegas and I just wasn't feeling up to it. So, the 24K didn't happen.

This weekend, we are in full taper mode so we're doing 16K on Saturday and then a fun 5K and 1K run on Sunday - it's called the "Great Pumpkin Run" I'm pretty sure the crew at Innovative Fitness has us running while carrying a pumpkin for at least 1KM of this fun event.

It's really getting down to the nitty gritty and there's a lot of buzz going on between the people I know who are running it. There are face to face conversations, emails, text messages, Facebook posts - everyone encouraging each other and talking about last minute strategy, do's and don'ts, tips, information, etc.

Also, I've noticed that doing an event like this - you seem to be made more acutely aware of everything to do with Marathons. Sort of like when you're looking at a new car - all of a sudden it seems like that same car you are looking at - everyone is driving one - they're all over the place.

Anyway, I read this cool story about Rod Dixon and Geoff Smith in the New York Marathon in 1983. I guess Geoff Smith was leading the marathon for most of it and at mile 26, Rod Dixon caught up and passed Geoff Smith and won by 9 seconds.

Here's a picture of Rod Dixon standing and Geoff Smith on the ground -



Devastating for Geoff Smith!
Anyway, Dixon's time back in 1983 was 2:08:59. The cool part is that Dixon is running it again this year, at age 58, 25 years after he set that record in 1983.

I'm not running this for a personal best or best time - I'm just looking forward to completing it and giving my fellow runners a High 5 at the end! In 9 Days!