Sleepless Nights

It's hard to believe that the race is one week from tomorrow. I'm feeling so many emotions. I'm frustrated that I'm not where I planned to be with training, I'm proud that we have almost doubled our fundraising goal, I am SO nervous about a race that I may be totally under prepared for, excited at the idea of running a marathon, my first marathon, as part of Team Callie. Mostly I'm just a ball of nerves. I lay in bed every night looking at the weather, the race website, checking the same hotel reservations, wondering how the kids will do with all of it, if Aarik will be able to come and see me finish, if my leg will actually let me finish, wondering if it will be as painful as i've heard in the days after, thinking about how fun it will be to spend parts of the weekend with Josh, Aimee, Callie & their family members and several members, both running and not, of Team Callie. There are members of our team who will be in Virginia, Colorado, Utah, The Middle East, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, Alaska and Team GSF will be running the same day in California. Anybody out there in a place I didn't mention, let us know you'll be with us on race day! The love and support that we've seen from y'all on this journey has been amazing. Thank you.

Tonight they announced that lots of the New York marathon runners who don't get to run this weekend are registering for Richmond. They expect the race to be full. What will it be like to run with so many people? Will their be any political backlash happening that will make me feel hesitant to have my kids out and about in such a crowded venue  just days after the election? There are lots of happy and thankful things I'm thinking, but some I want to save for closer to the race when I have a bit more time to write.

Tomorrow morning my training plan only calls for 8 miles. There's a part of me that is relieved by that, and part of me that is terrified to let my mileage dip so low after the very few long runs I've had. My shin is still touchy, so I will likely stick to the 8 miles. Next week is for hydration, carbo loading and higher salt intake... And insane amounts of prayer. And, of course, more sleepless nights.