I’m just 36 hours out from the first fall marathon of the season, the Rochester Marathon. Its funny how different you feel prior to a race when you actually taper .. my legs aren’t sore, I have energy and am actually excited about heading north to Rochester tomorrow. The only hard part is that its been a tough week at work, so i’m a little more “mentally” tired than i’d like to be, but its time to clear my mind and focus on the race.

Its been a long summer of training in prep for this fall, so i’m hoping for a decent finish time on Sunday. I’m shooting for about a 4 hour finish if all goes well. I pretty much followed Pfitzingers 70/12 plan and although I struggled a few times on a few workouts, I always finished each workout strong despite the struggle, so I think it was a good experience to push myself like I did. It really does pay off … Probably the worst part is that I haven’t really done a decent length run in a little bit (due to the taper), so my confidence is a little shaky, but i’ve been here before, I have to trust the training.

The good thing is that the weather is looking promising with a mid 50’s start, upper 60’s finish and a chance of showers sometime in between. That probably means the sun will not be out the whole time, which as far as i’m concerned is okay. If I can keep myself hydrated and fueled, i’ll be just fine.

So all day I’ve been consuming more carbs that normal, taking in fluids and have one last warm up run of 3 miles set for tomorrow morning before I leave. I don’t expect to post again before the race, so watch for my post race report sometime Monday or Tuesday if I have time to get to it …

Rochester, here I come …….