I am getting more and more nervous. I haven't taken a nap all week yet which is good. The less napping the better I sleep at night. The day is coming to run the marathon and it is really a big unknown. I am, overall, a very positive thinker and am a strong believe, as many of you know, in the power of mentally preparing and mental toughness.

The thoughts start coming back into my head though of skipping about 4 weeks of training. Is it going to come back to haunt me? Is my left hamstring/knee going to be a pain in the ass like it has the past few weeks (quick side note; For some reason my left knee, which was reconstructed, feels like it doesn't want to bend once I get into a longer run. My hamstring just above my knee (in back of course) becomes stiff. This is something that is not cool and I am hoping will go away once adrenaline kicks in)?

I am at the point now where I have done all I could have to prepare for my first (but not my last) marathon.

I will check in tomorrow after my kickball game for a last post before my run saturday. US plays Brazil in soccer tomorrow. Will they win? No, they won't. Hopefully they can have a decent showing though. Goodnight. I will have pictures with my post tomorrow, thats a promise.

The 40 hour work week

I am a big fan of the 40 hour work week. It sucks from Mon-Thursday, but once Thursday night hits it is rather amazing. I am slowly getting back into my mode from 2005 and 2007 which is work 40 hours m-f and then party on the weekends. These days the partying is scaled back big time to a more hang out by myself (stupid botham :-() but its still nice to think I have solid work for the next 3 months. I dont want to think about after the end of august jobwise, but at least football will be back on, though that could be one of the only pluses as I have the whole life thing to sort out. What a mess. Things to do: buy car, find place to live, decide where I want to live ????. Like most other tasks that suck I will leave it until the last minute...

Gophers football plays mich state halloween night at 700 at the new stadium. Tickets go on sale july 13. I am going and would enjoy company. Imagine how sick that atmosphere is going to be!? God knows how much the tix will be, but it cant be more than $50 for upper deck. Should be a good time though.

Gotta hit up the drive in sometime in the next few weeks. This weekend I got nothing, next weekend marathon, and then maybe then next weekend after that? We kinda are losing our pick up trucks so might need to go the lawn chair method, but whatever its the drive in and its raelly hard to make it a bad experience.

I just wrote this quickly because I wasn't tired, but now I am. Time to listen to http://www.1029litefm.com/ while thinking about pwning in kickball in 66 hours!

I promise to start taking pics this summer. This blog is so bland without pics. That will change starting very shortly...

summer job and running

I start a summer job tomorrow that will run through august. It is at the minnesota youth soccer assc. office. I worked there 2 year ago and will be doing the same thing this time. It is a job and I will have consist 40 hour work weeks for 3 full months so I cannot turn that down.

I logged 29 miles of running last week. I honestly didn't know if I would be able to bounce back into training for my marathon after barely running for 4 weeks, but I got through a good week of running and start to taper down now. I am definitely nervous for the marathon because the furthest I have run is 15, and i need to go 11+ miles further. I have a feeling that the adrenaline from race day and the crowd and having a lot of my friends up there should be enough motivation to finish. I was very nervous a week ago about even attempting to run it. I was thinking of maybe just not even doing it because I didnt want to be that person that runs 5 miles and walks the majority of the race. Thats just pathetic and sad and not what I'm about. So I had a good running week and got my miles in even through some adverse issues. 1. negative thoughts; I started to doubt myself and doubt spreads fast. I manned up and got the runs in. 2. Working; landscape kicks my ass and I am tired after, but I had to go out and get in the runs. 3. kickball; we played at 7:15, but coming from work I had to run at the park, so I went for a 4 mile run to downtown minneapolis and back. I honestly think it was the most enjoyable run of training until... 4. satuday's cold, windy rain; I went to bob's fire on friday night and had about 8 beers or so and hot tubbed and didnt leave until 5am. Got home and had a great sleep to wake up at 11:45 to pouring rain. I knew the rain was coming and was excited to run in it. It was about 50 with pouring rain and wind. It was just another mental barrier to scale, and I did. 12 miles in that shit weather that felt like october felt a lot colder when I went out for malts and burgers with ty and dave afterwards than before. I do love that I didnt see a single soul out during my almost 2 hours outside. I was that moron running in the cold rain to all the passerbys in their cars.

So even though my max run was only 15 and not the rx'ed 20 I still think I will be ok for the marathon a week from this saturday, Jun 20. I am excited.

Thanks for the fire bob, those never get old and I get to go to my favorite fire area of all: andy's mom's backyard. So amazing.

I just want to say that I already feel like this summer is so different from the others. I guess last year was kinda different, but this year seems to feel really different, and not for the better. Tyler brought up a good point, that Tom brought up as well that we don't have a central hangout place anymore. It really does kinda suck. Nowhere to go on the weekend to pregame or just play beer pong or something. I will try to change this...

my yesterday and tomorrow

Thursday: Go to sleep at 3:30, wake up at 6:30. Work 8-4:30, go home, change, go to bryn mawr park off of penn and 394. Run 4 miles in 37.15. Play kickball against assholes. Win kickball 3-0, go 2-3 with an rbi and the game winning run. Go to the bar with buddies. Leave the bar at 12:15. Go home and eat sandwich. Lay down.

Work 8-4:30, go home and lay down from 5:20-6. Run 12 miles from 6:10-8:10. Go to package store. Buy case of bottles. Get ice. Put bottles and ice in cooler. Go to bon fire at bob's. Love life.

I am so excited for bob's fire tomorrow. Work can't stop me and neither can the 12 mile run that I am supposed to run saturday, but will get it out of the way tomorrow so I can get shitfaced for the first time since new years. Wow I am excited for this fire. It is comforting to know that 19 hours from right now will be bliss.

I got a job and am employed. Goodnight, about to have a lot better sleep than last night, thank goodness. ;-) Kisses Goodnight