U minus 5

Five days to the Umstead marathon.

Five days to see if this new methodology of run training will work out well, or leave me splattered against the wall at mile 18.

Five days to freak out about every little ache or pain, real or imagined, carbo-load, worry about nutrition, ponder every step of every run, pour over the map and over think everything.

there is nothing I can do, as of now, to make my fitness for the race any better. but there's an awful lot I can do to mess up my race experience.

The time I cut off from my two road marathons will be my test. In Detroit I went from 4:46 to 3:39, a 1:07 drop. It's my goal to go from 5:13 (at the '07 trail marathon) to 4:06. If I can beat that, then I'll have figured that my training was a success. Granted, the terrain is more difficult.

But what's like without a little challenge? :)