I am suddenly, and unexpectedly, overjoyed with the thought that the marathon is TWO WEEKS AWAY. It is on Dec. 9...and just looking at the calendar I feel giddy. I've not written about my training because it has been dreadfully disappointing. I had FOUR WEEKS...yes FOUR...of bad runs. While there's nothing quite as exhilarating as a good run, there's nothing quite as disheartening as a bad one...and FOUR WEEKS? I cannot tell you the number of times I called Shea in the past two weeks, "I don't think I can do this. Even my short runs are going poorly. Perhaps it is wise to quit? Should I quit? I'm going to quit. It's not that big a deal, right...to just quit? I'm quitting."

Nonetheless, I kept plodding away...seriously...PLODDING, and was finally rewarded. Here I was, two weeks away, facing my longest run (2 hours and 30 minutes). I was supposed to run Saturday...but I kept putting it off "due to weather." (Yeah, whatever.) I finally did it last night...and it went GREAT. Not only did the run go well...I am FULLY convinced I can do this now. I ran at least 10 miles (that would be at a 15 minute/mile pace...I'm a bit faster than ...but not much!) My full distance will only be 13.1 miles. I can do this!