My Marathon Goals. Or Contingency Plans. Or Whatever.

I ran a 2 mile run on Tuesday and a 3 mile run today.  Both were at pace.  Both were very short and very weird.  Weird because they were so short, but also weird because I don't have to dress up in all sorts of blinking lights and reflective vest-ages anymore due to this whole "where Earth is in its revolution around the Sun and that 23 degree axial tilt as the Earth rotates on said axis" thing making the sun appear to rise above the horizon earlier than usual.

But I scientifically digress.

My marathon is looming.  Loom loom loom.  Sunday Sunday Sunday.  I keep trying to sabotage myself, like buying multiple pieces of new training gear this week such as shoes and running capris and skirts and crazily thinking, "MAYBE I SHOULD WEAR THIS FOR MY MARATHON!"  I am also driving my husband bonkers, waking him up at 4:45 AM just to talk because, for once, I'm not busy running in the dark and have nothing better to do but because my alarm went off at the regular time I am wide awake. My taper madness knows no bounds, it seems.

When I'm not busy being tapering madly, I am thinking about my goal for this marathon.  Actually, I have several marathon goals:

• Try to maintain my time goal. (10:00/mile)
• Try to not think about my time goal when I realize I probably started too fast and this is my first marathon and I shouldn't really have a time goal anyway, unless that time goal is specifically for former fat chicks who smoked 2 packs a day for 16 years.
• To cross the finish line without suffering a crippling horrific injury.

• To hang out with the 4:30 pacers and then try and gradually pass them if my legs are feeling good.
• To stay behind the 4:30 pacers if I am not feeling strong and make friends with my fellow back-of-the-packers until we reach a point of friendliness that we leave the course and hang out at the first bar we pass.
• To wear my Camelbak and look like a total nerd (or draw other running nerds to me as they ask where I got my SWEET backpack).
• To not lace my shoes so tightly that I give myself another case of tendinitis by mile 19.
• Not to cry.
• Not to walk.
• To try and get a few molecules of water in my mouth as I try to drink and run through water stations.
• Not to sit down in the middle of the course and beg for my mother (who would just tell me to suck it up, buttercup).
• To remember to eat the gels I bring with me before they start handing them out at mile 17.
• Not to snot rocket until I get onto the bike path.
• To set my Garmin to show me my pace after each lap rather than my instantaneous pace so I don't get all kooky over numbers.

So some of those goals are really contingency plans in disguise; at least I'm preparing for contingencies.  But my main goal, as trite and overused as it sounds, is to have fun and enjoy the experience.  I will be stopping to take pictures.  I will crack jokes with other runners.  I will try and remember to shut off all the annoying beeps on my Garmin.  (That reminds me of one more goal--actually bring and wear my Garmin.  Remember, it is the boss of me.)

But I will mostly try and remember that I can do this.  I can finish.  Dammit, if Oprah can do it, so can I.