one run at a time

after saturday, i was done my last 'long' pre-marathon run.
after this morning, i'm done my second last pre-marathon run.

there are four real days left.
i have one short pre-marathon run on friday morning.
and then it's all a-happening.

so, my saturday morning run was... eventful! 8 miles. at mile 2.5, my hair elastic exploded. spppprong, sweatyhairtail now slicked to my neck. real cute. ... i had to find the elastic on the pavement and tie it back up, like a parcel, with badly behaved string. it wasn't optimal. whatever!

note: extra hair elastic in pocket on race day.

then at mile 6, i had this little 3 foot patch of brambley grass to cover, between sidewalk and street, and i thought: be careful. go slow, just in case you steeeeeee..... and, i fell in a big hole.

actually i fell into a pipe. my foot went straight down, into an open pipe flush with the ground and big enough around to let my whole foot in with minimal twisting, and i just sort of sat down, and my leg went into this pipe, up to my *knee*. seriously. i have a blue and swollen bruise on the inside of my knee, three days later, from the top of the pipe.

i sat there on the grass with slow-motion adrenaline waves washing over me, thinking ... ok, so my whole left lower leg is in a pipe. that was not the goal for today. but... i don't think i'm hurt? i got up, walked gingerly back to the sidewalk, onto the street, and was running before i got to the other side. i felt fine, just shaken. the bruise and swelling didn't really make themselves known to me till the day after -- but they don't affect my running at all.

note: watch for huge lurking open pipes on the marathon course?
also note: have used up ALL POSSIBLE LUCK before race. no tempting any of the gods now.

yesterday i cross-trained in my parents basement, nevermind how, and this morning i did my last 'speedwork'. and i basically did what i was supposed to do, even! i ran the intervals at just about the proscribed pace, six 1/4 miles at about 8 minute miles, and they might have been a little too fast, but no worries. when i was all done and feeling good, turned out i had miscalculated and i was too far from home after cool down, so the run was more like 5 miles than 4. and in that last mile, i was running nice and easy, but there's a bunch of inclines along the way (damn parents, living at the top of a hill in like every direction) and i really didn't feel like running them.

but obviously i did, because of the banking mentally hard miles project, and because i am apparently going to run a marathon on sunday.

kind of excited? i don't know. mostly i am just slightly alarmed at the prospect of getting across the border on saturday despite government shutdown nonsense, and getting to the starting line via a bit of a walk on the morning of, while 18,000 other people do the same thing. well, and also i just realized that my hotel is in between two parts of the course, and so we will have to get our car OUT of there before the race starts, no? because otherwise what happens at the end?! um, logistics are ridiculous.

anyway. i'm maybe ready. tomorrow and thursday are pilates, core, stretching, stuff like that. i'm probably not too freaked out.

just no more surprise foot-wide deathtrap pipes in the ground, please, universe.