The Day Before the Day of...

Today is a very strange day. It's the day before I run my first ever marathon. I'm running in the 26th annual LA Marathon tomorrow.

I drove the route with Queen, who used to be a runner herself for 30+ years and felt pretty good about it. It's a lot of downhill once we leave Dodger Stadium. We head through Chinatown and around downtown, around Echo Park Lake and into Hollywood from the east side. We run down the Hollywood Walk of Fame (from Gower to Orange), down Orange to Sunset Blvd. On Sunset we run west through West Hollywood and clubs such as The Whisky and the House of Blues. From there we run past what used to be called The Bel Age and is where Aha and I got married almost 11.5 years ago. From there we run down San Vicenti Blvd and run by The Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills. Next we run over to and down Rodeo Drive - the shopping hot spot in Los Angeles. THEN - through Century City and around the Veterans Administration and back onto San Vicente Blvd. in Brentwood. Down San Vicente and onto Ocean Avenue and one half mile from there and I'm done.

Sounds easy right?

I'm not so sure.

I've spent the last 10 days or so, breaking down the route into little runs - downtown is its own run, east hollywood is its own run, hollywood is its own run, etc. I'm pretty o.k. with the little runs all adding up to a large, what-the-hell-have-I-done-run; and until now, I've not been particularly nervous.

Don't be fooled, I'm not cocky; I don't think, "Heck, I've got this in the bag" AT ALL.

It's a really tough thing to wrap my brain around. I have been resting all day. I know what I'm wearing, I'm moderately afraid that it will rain on the run. I'm hoping that all the predictions of rain late in the day leave me with a fairly dry run. But at this point, at 4:23 PM, a mere 15 hours before my run, I am starting to get anxious. I'm starting to wonder, "um, what the heck?" I'm starting to wonder if I've bitten off more than I can chew. Is this a case of my eyes were bigger than my feet?

What I really don't want to do is have to tell people that I didn't finish. So you can bet your bottom whatever that I'm crossing that finish line no matter what. I hope not to be last, but let's face it, someone has to be.

I will write again on Monday when I'm back on this couch resting up from what I hope will be one of the most amazing days of my life.

I'll take all those good thoughts please,

DenaRena.