Plan of attack

“Without a plan there's no attack, without attack there's no victory!”

This is a line from one of my favorite cheesy 80's movies (as I called them). If you can name it, I'll buy you a burrito and a bag of their awesome chips at Chipotle.

Anyway, the countdown continues and eventually this marathon will be complete and I'll have nothing to write about, so I'm going to take advantage of this while I can.

So my plan of attack is still in motion. I've been chatting with Debbie on what I will like after the race, and trying to figure out how to make the hand off. I've been checking metro transit to make sure I can get to the dome via train so I don't have to mess with the car situation. And the biggest: I've been trying to mentally prepare.

E and I had talked about a method he had read or heard about where a runner had Bible verses with them while they ran – one for each mile. I scoffed at this at first but running the 19 the other day really made me realize that without RB to talk to and to keep me going or music to listen to and keep me focused (or unfocused on the pain), I'm going to need something to keep me motivated and focused. To try this on my city run the other day I kept trying to motivate myself and muttered various phrases to myself. It worked for awhile until I ran out of phrases I could remember.

So I'm collecting some motivation statements and I just need to figure out how to bring them along with me. Here are the ones I have. If you have any others that could be motivating, please send them along!

• Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."

• “you are your own motivation” - girl with sign, JB and Megan

• “you are your very own superhero” - Andrea

• “God is with you because there's nowhere else He'd rather be.” - Beege

• “Run for yourself. You can do it.” - Clueless

• “Prove yourself wrong.” - Megan

• “There is nothing that wastes the body like worry, and one who has any faith in God should be ashamed to worry about anything whatsoever.” - Mahatma Gandhi.

• Romans 5:3-5, “...but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

• I do have the power to motivate myself. - Me

• “Moe, you have to keep going.” - Me

• Just put yourself ahead in time, pretend that it's next month already, and imagine that the past 4 or so weeks just totally rocked. Every hope you now possess for the coming weeks has manifested. Every challenge was breezed through. Every cool person stayed cool, every trickster became an ally, there were happy surprises along the way, and, you got plenty of sleep. This is how we do it. --Kung Fu -The Universe

• “I'm not the fastest - but dammit, I can run.” - Megan

• "Even if you fall flat on your face at least you are moving forward." Sue Luke

• 'Are you going to be a wimp, or are you going to be strong today?'" --Peter Maher, two-time Olympic marathoner from Canada

• “Marathons can only be understood backwards, but must be run forwards.” - magnet