slow and steady and injury-free

Marathon training without a time goal is sorta boring.   And really, I completely love it that way.  Boring is good.  Boring is consistent.  Boring is injury-free.  My sister-in-law stepped off a curb wrong and, in a complete fluke of kinetics, nearly broke her entire foot off Sunday, so boring is really, really appreciated by me right now.

But without an aggressive pace to chase, I'm left to fret about other things:  food and weather. 

I haven't cracked the nutrition code yet.  I have a couple of things left to try during my last 8-miler this weekend.  I know it's too late to be figuring this out and a shorter run isn't going to tell me much.  But... I can either try something new that may cause gastric distress or something I've practiced that definitely causes gastric distress.  Win-win, eh?  If all else fails, I'll eat a good breakfast and run with a pocket full of candy just to keep the blood sugar up.

On the weather front, I've finally found the conditions that make me hate running outside:  35º + driving rain + high headwind.   I did 10 miles in this the other night and my thoughts were alternating between I can't get frostbite when it's above freezing, how would I do 4 hours in this?, I can outrun hypothermia, and this is absolutely the worst run of my entire life.  

It would just be a good training experience to have out willed, except now I'm over-reacting, trying to plan for the possibility that those conditions (or any others) could reappear on race morning.  Yesterday I bought myself some confidence in the form of fancy clothing (light wool layers and a convertible jacket/vest) so this is turning into an expensive race.  Long range weather forecasts are pretty useless around here, but I'm still eager to reach tomorrow when race day will be included on the 10-day random-guess-of-the-moment. 

Really though, that's all the drama I can manufacture. 

I'm excited to race already and wish it were this weekend rather than next.  I don't expect to do anything on race day that I haven't already done in training – well, aside from completing the full 26.something, as my training plan maxed out at 20-milers – so I'm hoping it turns out pretty drama-less.  Looking beyond the race, my plan is to rest up through Thanksgiving, then move my thoughts to Ironman (still can't believe I get to say that).