The race approacheth

Today (Saturday): 7.8 miles (on trails in San Felasco state park) ~ 10:00 pace

This was a nice comfortable run with friends on a familiar trail, in crisp weather at sunrise.  Sound perfect, you say?  It was not bad.  As usual with a familiar run, the psychologic topology was more varied and interesting than the physical topology.  In keeping with an unintentional and undesired habit in life, I will sometimes picture difficulties and problems with a race well in advance of the race itself.  If I feel tired for a moment in a training run, I may picture myself feeling very tired at mile 22 of the marathon itself -- negative visualization, as it were.  But, these moments are an opportunity to practice running through (vanquishing or learning to accept, depending on one's mindset) these unwanted thoughts.  It is a little silly to have thoughts like this before the actual event, but that is part of what I must learn to accept!

Anyway it was a nice run, and a fitting way to begin the true "taper" week before the race.  As I've mentioned, I have not trained as hard as I would have liked and so have a gentler taper than otherwise, but this is still a week of light exercise, reflection, and positive visualization.  The training I've done has been good, solid training, both long runs and some speedwork, so this has the potential to be an excellent marathon.

After the run this morning I stopped at Uppercrust (excellent bakery), got coffee and pastries, and went home to a wonderful greeting from my family.  Next weekend we have relatives coming to town (including my brother in law who is going to run the race too) and some good times planned with friends, many of whom are also running.  Not bad at all, I think.

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Wed - Fri: nothing at all as I was mostly flat on my back with a flu-like illness (now  more or less fully recovered).