Excitement

This morning I went out for my run. Only five miles. I am tapering, which is heaven after the last couple of weeks of high milage. I ran 91.34 miles in September... and that is only because I got sidelined by sickness for a few days and injury for a few more days. I would have had over 100 miles if I had kept to my training plan.

At one point in my run this morning, I heard meadowlarks - my favorite bird. Since the morning was 47º, I know that the birds will soon be leaving, and I wanted a recording of the birds for posterity. You guys probably don't care, but I do. I can look and listen to this video on the dead of winter and it will give me hope.

Tomorrow I will meet the texting sponsee at the 6:30 meeting and then we will sit for a half hour or so after that and talk. It is good.

So, what am I excited about? I have a half marathon to run on Sunday, and then my full marathon is on the 17th. The half marathon is local. The full marathon requires a flight of several hours, and then a cab ride to the hotel. Two nights in a tony downtown hotel, within walking distance to the expo, start, and finish of the race. I am excited. I get updates several times a day via Facebook - and it all sounds glorious. I love the pictures of the ocean and palm trees. There was one picture of a "hill" and I couldn't believe it. It is a slight, barely noticable, grade. I am used to gaining hundreds of feet in elevation per mile. It makes me slow, but it does make me strong. I feel optimistic.

I watched an interview of Michael J. Fox on CNN tonight. He said something so wonderful. I don't know if I can quote it exactly, but I will try....

"If you worry about 'worst case scenario' and it doesn't happen, you have just wasted a lot of time. If you worry about 'worst case scenario' and it does happen, you have lived it twice."

I think I will just plan on the best outcome - and even if it doesn't turn out that way, I can have the pleasantness of thinking about it until I need to think of it a different way.