A Little Over a Week to Go!

There are just a hand full of days before I leave for the 2010 North Pole Marathon! I leave Friday and have just one more planned run before I jump on a plane. Tonight I had to work late, so I ended up doing thirteen and change miles in the dark with winds blowing in the solid twenties and a moon doing its best midnight sun impression. It was a good run at about an eight and a half min pace (I'm not exactly sure because my wiz-bang gps tracker died on me in the last mile or so). I spent most of the run thinking about the last six months worth of runs and all of the different ways and days that I had run past this and that. As the race gets closer, I'm focusing less on pushing my speed and mostly trying not to hurt myself at the end. I'm finding that has led me to settle into a distance pace that sort of seems to take care of itself. Tonight I didn't really think about the running itself (other than the ever present base coat of "just dont stop"); I was just sort of watching it happen. The change in stride with inclines, careful footfalls on uneven desert, swinging shoulders. Over the last six months I have been trying to find a way to think about this entity that is 'the running' I've tried to think of it as a truck or a ship to be driven and guided through the desert ( on fast days it is a big white lone ranger stallion :) ). I have tried to think of my legs as the close air support of a Normandy beach landing. There are lots of these, most are fairly cocky and none are really true. Tonight I realized that the running is almost a conscious entity that I'm sharing my body with. It's hard to explain why this feels right, but it is. Its like a split personality that I can't ever meet face to face. I can only watch it at work. This is the character that swings the arms and meters breath and times the steps so that the left foot falls just before an old sheep skeleton and the right one falls just after. Its not just legs and feet and lungs, and it is more than hundreds of miles of muscle memory.

Now that I'm all showered and full of post run chocolate milk, sitting comfortably typing, I have to wonder if this runner is in there someplace watching me. Maybe restless over the stillness, maybe wishing I've stretched a little better. I wonder if this runner has any idea what lay in store for it in a week or so.

As the race looms I'm finding myself spending less time running and more time thinking about what I'll be running in. Seems like everyday I'm ordering some piece of gear that I realize that I've forgotten. I think I have most of what I need at this point. I laid it all out on the floor in two groups. One for the run, and one for the time spent hanging out in a frozen wasteland. The running stuff was pretty easy to sort out, the race organizers have a complete list of suggested equipment that was really helpful. The hanging around in the arctic was a little more of a challenge. I have been secretly terrified of not being able to keep my feet warm and have this horrible vision of some ancient Norwegian doctor cutting of frost bitten toes with an old cigar cutter! Lucky for me my Uncle Dan, who has spent all of recent history in Alaska, sent Juls and I army surplus arctic travel Bunny Boots. These things are inflatable, waterproof inside and out, and rated to minus 65F. Awesome. Dan managed to find some of these monsters in my size 14. Clodhopper is an understatement. These things are an absolute life saver. Thanks Uncle Dan! Less exciting, but a lot more colorful; I found a really nice 800 fill down jacket a big discount online. It is bright orange and makes me look like something in between the stay-puff-marshmallow-man and a traffic cone. At least they will be able to find me if I get lost. :)