The ball is my friend. The ball is my friend.

I went for my last run tonight before the marathon. It felt pretty good considering every thing (that would be my lack of running in the past few months.)

Thank God for Keith and his technique. It gives me something to focus on other than "oh shit, I'm only at mile 2?" I only went 4 miles tonight which was 2 more than I was going to go. But they felt good.

My splits were interesting:
Mile one: 11:35:59
Mile two: 12:01:34
Mile three: 11:42:79
Mile four: 12:01:87

That was totally weird how every other one was 12:01. This felt like a really good pace for me; not too fast, and not too slow - just like porridge, it was just right.

The whole run was beautiful. The weather is perfect right now...simply perfect. And with the leaves revealing their true colors I felt at times like I was flying.

I ran through a myriad of mantras in my head and landed at one point on the best from Necessary Roughness, "The ball is my friend. The ball is my friend." Which, of course, I changed into, "The road is my friend. My knees are my friends. My shoes are my friend. My legs are my friends." and so on.

I've said this before but it's really down to a mental game now. Whether or not I've trained enough, none of that will matter if my mind isn't in the game and positive that I can do this.

I read a blog today of a local running woman who writes about her morning runs with her running club friends. She just popped out a kid but several of her friends will be running the marathon this weekend with me (or I with them...however you want to look at it). She wrote this morning how one of her friends has done seven 20-milers in prep for this weekend.

Holy shit. SEVEN? I feel so under-prepared in that realm. God willing, I'll still be able to walk afterward. God willing, I'll make it to the end. And God willing, it'll be under 6 hours.

And after that I'm going to look forward - long term planning and training. None of this waiting until spring crap. I need to motivate myself now to get out and run. I need to set up a training schedule and workout program now. If I don't, I fear I never will and I'll be constantly up and down.

I'm still scared for this weekend. I want to do well, and I'm worried. I just need to keep looking 5-feet ahead and focus on my mechanics. If I start to fret about what everyone else is doing I think I'll have problems. If I lose focus on what I'm doing I will really have problems.

I need to breathe. I need to block out everything else. I need to not think about the hills. It's all flat once you're on them anyway, right? That was a Family Circus cartoon once. Billy asked Daddy, "Why does the hill get flat when you drive on it?" So true. Everything is flat.

And with that it's just one mile at a time. I learned last year that there are still a lot of people even at the end of the pack (though it does thin out). But that doesn't matter either.

I'll just keep pushing forward. One quad at a time. My quads are my friends. My quads are my friends.