Here I go....

I’m running 30 miles tomorrow. Realistically, I should have chosen a marathon in June. I have missed some significant parts of the training due to work and life changes. I think pushing the date could get me back on track but those marathons wouldn’t be on my birthday weekend. I set out to run Run 30 miles on my 30^th birthday, happy birthday to me!

I’m incredibly lucky to have a family that likes to get together and will use any excuse to do so. We have been known to move holidays around to suit our travel schedules. This weekend we celebrated three May birthdays and mother’s day. They all decided to head up to Maine to join me in one way or another in my run. Kate hosted a pre race cookout at her house in Saco and my mom made me a wicked awesome shirt that I will run in. Julia, my father and my brother in law are going to jump in and run some of the race with me. Jen is going to run a mile with me and her kids, sort of a cool down victory lap.

My friend Jillian blogs about her running and training adventures ever since she traveled over to Ireland to run her first marathon. She’s pretty incredible and I read her blog to stay current in her life and for the inspiration it provides.  She’s not training for anything specific at the moment, but wrote, “when asked if I was training for a marathon and I thought about how even though I wasn't, I kind of was. In running or in life. We all are. In every marathon there's a rough stretch. At some point in every single race, it's gonna suck. And yet, almost always, we finish. We come back for more.” Funnily enough, some pretty amazing opportunities have come out of leaving Antigua abruptly and heading out to sea. This week I was in New York City working with The Atlantic Cup, a sailing organization that is trying to save the world by being a carbon neutral event. Last week I was superyacht racing in the Palma Vela and the month before that I had the best crossing of any of them that I have sailed.

As for running in the past month, my Nike+ gps is getting pretty tired. Linking to satellites seems to take longer when my runs are 2,000 miles apart. I hopped off the boat in Palma and ran 7 miles along the waterfront. Later in the week I ran up to the castle and back the morning after the first team dinner. Since I may have had a glass of wine too many the night before, I joined Amy that afternoon for another run. It was a beautiful run through the olive groves in Alaro. Before leaving Mallorca I ran down the waterfront again for 10+ miles. From Mallorca I flew to Charleston, SC for the start of the Atlantic Cup. The event kept me pretty busy but I managed to squeeze in some half mile intervals early one morning. Between Charleston and New York I had to drive through Beaufort, NC to meet one of the race boats. I stayed over night and, after sending the boat off the dock, I ran 12 flat miles around Beaufort and Moorehead City. This week in New York I tapered by running around the city instead of taking the subway. Am I ready? I think so. I know that I’ll finish, I’m just unsure of how I’ll be feeling when I do.

The race is in the area around Sugarloaf Ski Resort. Sugarloaf is approximately at the half way point as the course winds down route 27 from Eustis to Kingfield. The first part is flat road leading up to a hill climb that starts around mile 7. It climbs for 2 or 3 miles before heading down hill for the rest of the race. In order to bump it up to 30 miles I am going to run a 3 mile warm up on the way to the start and finish with a mile after the finish. It’s what most people do anyways, warm up and cool down, but tomorrow I’m going to count it all. I think it’s going to be a nice run. The weather hasn’t decided if it’s going to cooperate yet, it could be cold and rainy. After all, it’s a race in New England, as long as you keep running the weather will probably change.