Times up

The marathon is in 12 hours.

Today The Irishman and I woke up refreshed after an extra hour of sleep and did our last training run, a light 4.5 km jog down to the east pier in Dun Laoghaire and back.

Then we drove the race route to get a good sense of the terrain and elevation. Unfortunately that made me even more nervous than not. Quite a lot of the race from miles 6-15 have minor inclines that, while inconsequential in a car, are going to be killer on foot. It took quite a bit longer than we thought, and we gave up after mile 20 and headed off for food. We didn't get out to Avoca in the end, but enjoyed a nice pasta dish in Dalkey.

Now we've completed our preparations: our race numbers are pinned on our tops, our gels are attached to our bottoms, our race bags are packed, and I've got the jitters. My sore throat has slowly progressed to a runny nose and slight cough. I'm hoping this is mostly nerves and hypochondria, but who knows. As long as I can breathe, I should be okay but I really just want to be able to DO IT.

Anyway, this is it, isn't it? Now I just need to get on and do it. No more preparations possible, really. Although The Irishman just reminded me that I need to poop tonight. Thanks, dear.

Thank you all for all of the on-going support and care you've shown me through this process. If you are keen and want to watch the run, RTE (www.rte.ie) is televising the race from 9am tomorrow. I'll let you know how I go as soon as I can. Hugs xx

(Editors note: I'm using the Blogger app and it's rubbish. You can't add hyperlinks, do any text editing like italics or bold, or put pictures where we want. Anyway, sorry for the crude posting this weekend.)