Five days until the marathon

With only five days left until I run the Lower Potomac River Marathon in Piney Point, Md., I am getting nervous.  You would think I have not done this 10 times before.

Training is essentially done.  In this morning's bitter cold of 9 degrees, I managed to do four 400-meter repeats at an average of 1:25 apiece - faster than 5K pace.  Thanks to my new Garmin GPS watch, I was able to measure out those blocks on the roads since the tracks are still covered in snow.

But those were four quick little bursts to cap my speed/quality training from the past few months - months that have included the harshest weather in my nine winters of running.  My speed work, tempo runs, and hill sprints were surely compromised by the ever-present ice and snow.  Still, I gave each workout my all, never shied away from the hard stuff, and ran outside for every single run without skipping any at all, even on the coldest of days.

So I will finish my taper and go into the race with a lot of hard effort behind me, if not the most stellar training times and workout results.  I am injury-free, ready to go, and keeping expectations realistic.