Of energy, of will, of belief . . . you name it, and it's been drained from me. I thought these last two weeks before the marathon would be a breeze. Instead, I've either bailed on or walked through several runs, having felt like my body was revolting against me, unwilling to push forward in the most defiant manner. This makes me concerned. If I can't get through five miles, how will I get through twenty-six? I began thinking that it might not happen--I might have to pull out of the race. I imagined myself getting all the way to Chicago, standing in line among thousands of runners on race morning, only to find that my body would quit on me a couple of miles in. What then? Would I duck out in shame, try to continue on, walking? This isn't a walking race. Everyone would be disappointed. I've made a huge deal about it. For months. I made sure everyone I cared about knew I was doing this. And they'd be expecting great things of me--great things I wouldn't be abl...

That's the best way I can describe my current training status for this marathon. I've survived it, or at least most of it. What remains is a roughly two-week tapering down program in which I run shorter distances and rest my body for the big race day. These past few months were not without several injuries (which were mostly minor, but felt on the verge of becoming major), nor were they without days of utter doubt--physical, mental, and emotional. At different times the sun beat me down, exhaustion got the best of me, and pain overtook my body. But what prevailed throughout this most rigorous challenge I've ever willingly undertaken was an almost overwhelming desire to achieve something big in my life. All around me people were getting married, having babies, and--well, mostly having babies. So I made this experience my baby. I took great care in planning it, I nurtured it, and I tried to be patient with it in difficult times.  Perhaps that's as far as I can reasonabl...

At least, it was this morning for about two hours. I decided I needed to take some restorative time out for me. I've worked hard all summer with training, work, and school, and I always lament the fact that I live so close to the beach and rarely visit it. What I actually wanted to do was get up before dawn and arrive at the beach in time for the sun to rise. My Saturday morning pre-dawn run inspired the idea. I had reached my halfway point--right about when the sun was peaking above the horizon--and headed back toward home. Now that I have my Garmin watch, I don't carry my phone with me, so if I see something particularly photo-worthy, I can't take a picture. I was bothered by this on my run as I saw a vibrant rainbow shooting out from behind some condos and disappearing into the clouds. I thought, one morning I should just wake up early and come out to Bayshore with my camera. And then I took it further and decided the beach would be even more picturesque. And then, my fr...

I did it. For the second time in my life, I completed a 20-mile run. Not only does this number mark the height of many marathon training schedules, but for me it is also significant in that I've been here once before, and I broke down. My body suddenly decided it had been pushed too much and would not finish the training or run the marathon. So here I am in my post-20-miler week, hoping to make it through. After all, it was on an "easy" five-mile run that my injury occurred. And it was on a Thursday--tomorrow. I am admittedly somewhat superstitious, so my real feat will be getting past tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day--until I actually make it to Chicago on race day. In fact, I was talking to a run-club friend last night, who is also running Chicago, about our sudden fear of incurring a non-running injury in our daily lives--falling down some stairs, tripping on curb, or some other injury of klutz--that would prohibit us from making it to race day. I suddenly ...

That was me, last weekend. Or perhaps more accurately, that was my body, rebelling against my will. After coming off of a--dare I say--good 18-miler in the previous weekend, I had only to complete a 12-mile long run. I did my normal Friday night prepping and set four alarms for early Saturday morning. When those alarms went off, I heard them, but I chose to ignore them. I can't tell you what I thought in that moment, except that I wanted to sleep more than I wanted to run. But it's never about wanting  to run for me; it's about having the strength and will to do something important for myself. So the fact that I ignored all four alarms that morning was, frankly, alarming to me. But I carried on with my Saturday with a plan to do the run in the evening. I set out at about 7:45pm, when the sun was nearly set, and I began my journey. I was feeling fine until about 1.5 miles in, when the humidity started to get to me, and my legs started hurting. I had experienced this befor...

It's 2:30am. I cannot sleep. I cannot sleep because I decided to do my long run at 8:00pm, which, after all of the several-minute water breaks were factored in, turned into a nearly 3.5-hour run. Two things that I always thought should happen after a long run but still never do: I get hungry, I get tired. I look at the calorie burn on my RunKeeper app, and I see that I've burned 1,709 calories. That's some people's daily intake of calories. This makes me think I should be hungry. Yet, I'm not. My stomach feels so tight and full from water that food is actually repulsive immediately after a long run. But I eat anyway, for recovery purposes. Tonight I had half of Greek yogurt cup (protein), half of a banana (potassium, carbs), and a large bowl of cereal (just because I love cereal, and I thought it might be good; it was, until my stomach hurt afterward). But I'll rectify this matter by making up the deficiency tomorrow. In case you were worried. But what's...

Friday night I went on a 12-mile training run along Bayshore Boulevard. I had made it through the toughest part--the halfway turnaround--and I was about three-quarters done with the run when some instinctive calling told me to stop and turn around, observe the sky. It was about 8:20 p.m., and an earlier storm had left behind a sky of cloud that veiled the intensity of the summer sun. And even though the sun does not set over this particular bay, the Hillsborough Bay (the shore of which faces east), the muted sun did a couple of magical things that I had to stop and take pictures of. The first thing it did was cast a golden gleam onto the buildings of downtown Tampa. From the distance at which I stood, the buildings were not so recognizable that they were familiar; instead, the golden speckles made the downtown area look to me like a gilded city, another place entirely. Still smiling from this encounter, I continued on my run. I was about 8.5 miles in when I decided on a whim to lo...