running: the dawn

I feel like I’m a captive.  Somehow, since my run last Friday, the Sun has decided to hijack all my well-laid plans.  I cannot believe how hot it has been here the past few days!  Maybe it’s “taper madness” or me just not having enough gumption, either way I haven’t run in four days.  I was in Chicago this weekend with Mr. Dawn.  We enjoyed our time and I didn’t worry about running because I figured I’d be back home on Monday with plenty of time to get in my scheduled 16 miler.  THEN came the 94 degrees of glory that was yesterday. Followed by another ridiculously hot day today.  My hope to get in one more long run seems to be slipping through my fingers.

Ok…well…maybe I have a confession.  I was planning on going running late last night, after it started to cool off.  But instead, I went to see Iron Man 2.  Mr. Dawn came home so that he can drive me to the airport on Wednesday.  He’s been gone for over a month now and so I made him all his favorite food for dinner.  Our friend Fidi came over and during the meal we all decided that it would be so fun to go to a movie.  We were right.  While I didn’t love-love the movie, it was pretty decent for a sequel.  Albeit a bit long….

After the movie I went home to finish packing.  I leave from Chicago Wednesday morning.  Tonight we’re driving back to the city.  I can’t believe this has already come!  I’m almost 10 days away from my marathon!  Egads! (I totally stole that from roadbunner…)

I’m already starting to see some flaws in my plans for this marathon.  Mainly, the fact that it will come at the end of a 10-day vacation.  I get to spend the next week week and a half catching up with old friends, attending graduation, and baby-sitting.  I have a feeling this is going to compound my current lack of running.  I mean, I expect to run less during a taper period, I don’t necessarily expect to not run at all…I’m hoping that if I keep myself on eastern time, I’ll be able to get up in the mornings and get some good workouts in.

The bottom line is: I don’t want to lose fitness!  I don’t want missing these runs to come back and bite me.  If I miss my goal time by 5 minutes or so, I will drive myself crazy with “what if’s”.  I would be perfectly fine missing my time if I knew that I had done EVERYTHING possible to train (well, maybe not 100% fine…).  But I feel like I’m not currently doing everything I could do…and that just makes me scared…

Anyone new to marathoning?  Welcome to the taper-madness!  Yes, it’s just a fancy word for runners who loose their minds.