myself, Tina and Lori at the Expo last night
I am laughing so hard right now, I can barely even control myself! I woke up this morning with a song in my head (this happens often by the way) and totally correlated it with the marathon! The song was "If this is it," by Huey Lewis and the News! So I said to myself, "this is it" the marathon is here and you did all you can do and hopefully it is a great day! Well I just decided to look up the lyrics to this song, the main chorus goes like this:
If this is it
Please let me know
If this ain't love you better let me know
If this is it
I want to know
If this ain't love baby, just say so
Haha, it's a "love" song! How cute, but how the heck did this get into my head?! Like I said this is a normal occurrence that I wake up with songs in my head...it is almost as if they are playing in my dream and when my eyes open I am still thinking about it! So maybe I was dreaming about the marathon? Not sure but IT IS all I can thinking about lately! I am so very excited, nervous, hyper, happy and scared all at the same time. My emotions are all over the place and I feel so strange at times. I am worried about all the normal things marathoners worry about: did I train enough, will I make the whole 26.2, what will the weather be, what clothes should I run in, etc.
I think my biggest concern is my foot. I have not blogged or spoke about it much because I felt like it was bad karma but back on Sept. 27 I injured my foot during a 21 mile run. Ever since then I have been resting, icing, taking anti-inflammatories, wearing flat shoes, cross training and doing whatever I can do to stay in shape but overall it has been a tad disheartening. I have been to the doctor 3 times: 2 x-rays and 1 bone scan later I was diagnosed with a minor stress fracture. The good news is, the bone scan shows it was small and is almost healed which is amazing news! I was able to do a 15 mile and a 17 mile run plus a few short runs but in total I have only run 5 times in the last 5 weeks and that frightens me. I made the decision to rest and save my foot for race day rather than further injure it during training. I am still frightened at the fact that I may not be fully trained and that I am running the risk of breaking the bone completely. At this point there is nothing else I can do, the race must go on! I put in several months of training and believe my body will remember that! (Muscle memory?) I may be a little slower but I still know I will make it!
On a brighter note, my fundraising capped out at $7,599! Woohoo! All the proceeds directly go to Memorial Sloan-Kettering for cancer research. I will be 1 of 700 Fred's Team Charity Runners in the marathon and together we raised over $2MM for the cause! On marathon day I will be thinking of my grandmother who I lost to cancer and was treated at Sloan-Kettering Hospital.
I will also thinking about all my friends, family and coworkers who donated to this cause and have provided me with kind words and encouragement these last 5 months! I am so lucky to be surrounded by such amazing people and have their support. A big thanks to all the Hoboken Elysianettes who I trained with many many times...I cant wait to see you cheering at mile 23!!! Also a special thanks to Tina and Lori, my fellow Fred's Team-mates, whom I met at the opening dinner several months ago and have been emailing with every week since! Ok well, I didn't mean for this to be an Emmy speech but while I am at it a special thanks to Matt, who has had to deal with me on a daily basis and listen to ALL of my complaints (yes there are a lot) and my ups and downs with marathon training. He is super supportive and never let me get too down on myself.
So what am I doing to prepare? Resting a lot, getting to bed early every night this week, going over my check-list of everything I need to bring with me, looking at weather.com every 5 seconds and praying for no rain, emailing with running friends with last minute questions, etc. Tomorrow I will check into my hotel in Times Square that my charity gives me for all my hard work! Then I will go out for my favorite pre-race dinner: a burger and fries! Then on Sunday I will be with my charity team and heading to Staten Island via a bus and starting in the 2nd Wave, 10am start! Woohoo, I am so pumped!
Ok well, THIS IS IT! On to do something very different, very challenging and very crazy - 2009 NYC Marathon, here I come! Look for me Sunday in my orange shirt!
