I'm in the red zone
The last few seconds are ticking off the clock
A Finish Line just appeared around the bend
I recall seeing a sign 2 miles from the end of my marathon race in 2005 that said, "You are just a few steps away from finishing what you started!"
I feel really sore and tired most of the time, but I am still feeling much better than I did at this point with my last pregnancy.
I even swam 600 meters a few days ago. I felt like I was swimming through an oncoming current and it took me 21 minutes, which is quite slow even for me. But I am really close, so any exercise is just amazing at this point.
I am also working on visualizing my upcoming success in my most important race to date. Birthing my second child. I'm going to wear my heart rate monitor and IPOD and treat this like any serious race. The goal is a painless birth...a relaxed birth...a baby in my arms after hours NOT days. All this will happen.
I'm like Joan Benoit Samuelson, who I met once and talked to, although I can't remember what I said. I just read a recent article detailing Joan's Olympic Gold marathon race in 1984.
"Minute by minute, mile by mail, she forged onward past the barren landscape along the Marina Freeway, increasing her lead to almost 2 minutes at 15 miles. What fortitude enables a lone runner to hold form for more than 20 miles when she knows that behind her lay the greats, en masse, conserving energy, poised like a cycling peloton to overtake her? The answer came from Samuelson herself after the race, when she recounted her mindset. 'I said to myself, 'Are you prepared to deal with victory? I decided I was.'"
This will be me in just a few days! I am prepared to deal with victory.
3 comments:
What's the story on your son's birth? The way you write makes me think it was ... complicated?
Love reading your thoughts, as I sit here cheering you on. But this is really a response to your earlier post about differential caloric outputs. I always was told that calorie burn was related to work, such that going 5k burns the same amount no matter your pace. Or is it that work factors in weight as well as distance such that you burn more to move more pounds? But doesn't that insight cycle back to WANTING to burn more?
Conversely, the faster you proceed through the identical work, although burning no more calories, the more benefit to the cardiovascular system (and the quicker you're done)?
I think I need the Major's take on this one.
I'm so excited you two are actually reading my blog and leaving comments. To answer Amy's question I plan on posting a longer comparison of both my kids births as a new blog post.
Dad, I love you input and your right I think it is probably better to say be a fast runner than a slow runner, that is for your health and long term fitness level. I am not going to live in denial thinking that just because when I am heavy and slow I happen to burn more calories than Will that I'm in better overall "shape" then our dear brother. He wrote me a long email replying to that post, so I'll try to find it and post it on my blog for all our edification.
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