"it's the final countdown..."

(this blog post title is inspired by one of my teammates/readers, who could not get this song out of his head for a very long time :-p )

still cannot believe it, but there is less than a week to go. the work is done. this week is all about carbo-loading, resting, expo-visiting, other shopping, light (no more than 10 miles total) running, visualizing, daydreaming...the list goes on.

yesterday i was talking game plan with la familia, about where they were going to catch me on the course...i thought "oh shit, this is really happening this time." unreal.

Anyway, my last double-digit run until next Sunday was the last 10 miles of the marathon course with the Flyers. Was good practice-while I have done that last mile several times, miles 16-23 of the marathon course were still unknown territory to me and now I know where to expect the hills, and where to request my family cheering section. Anyway, I ran the first coupla miles with Runner26, then ran with another teammate for the remainder. The part where we entered the park was fun, since it was perfect timing-the leaders of the Marathon Kickoff 5-miler were just beginning to approach. Before we left the park around 67th street, we managed to cheer for 2 of our speedy guys as well as a bunch of others :) Finally, we finished up, and a bunch of us headed to brunch at Westside Brewery. The food was great there, as usual...was a mini-bloggers convention (Skylight and Derek were also in attendance-though the latter was not being social :-p) ...good conversation on anything from the marathon to me declaring that the infamous Sugoi shorts I wore in the Staten Island Half will now be known as the "naked shorts." :-p And before the run and during the brunch, I put my new toy to good use :) Can't wait to try that baby out during a race that I'm not running...

So that's it. Nothing left to do but put trust in my training, that it got me to the start line and will get me to the finish line. Oh, and still obsess about the weather. The latest update from weather.com is looking pretty good...