It takes a village to train for a marathon

Not voting for ol' Hillary, but I do kind of like that phrase....here's why....

This morning, as I have done the last two Friday mornings, I emailed Ron Childers for a custom forecast for Saturday morning from 8a-10a. I know what the HIGH is tomorrow and I know what the LOW is tonight, but I really need to know what the temps will be at the exact time during my run. I like to lay all my clothes out the night before and am just not good enough yet to figure out at the last minute how many layers, etc. Anyway, he sends me my own personalized custom forecast. (FYI - We are friends - it's not like I'm just emailing the weatherman....). Forecast for tomorrow's group run: Clear / Mid Forties to start near 50 by 10 / South wind @ 8-10 mph. That sounds nice.

So that lead me to thinking about the fact that I have my own personal marathon training team. I have my own meterologist, my own physical therapist, a running coach, access to a wide array of orthopaedic surgeons (love 'em, but hope I don't have to see 'em in a clinic), etc. And a HUGE cheering section. All my family, friends at work and friends at church are really cheering me on and supporting me. Jodi is even running the training schedule even though he's not running the marathon. He runs on his own, but said he wants to train 'with' me so we can do it 'together'. And so many people have made a contribution to my fundraising goal. And it's all just nice. And so so so encouraging. Because I really can't do this by myself. It's not real easy. And I'm really not even to the hard part yet.... So, thanks to everybody in 'my village'.

Today is Friday and that only means one thing: OFF DAY! I did my calf stretches this morning so I wouldn't be a total slug. But I was a partial slug, because I was still in my jammies.

Tomorrow - SIX MILES. Oh dear me. We're starting from the Fleet Feet shop parking lot over on Poplar Avenue. They are doing a shoe and gear clinic after the run, so we're putting in our miles there. I'm a little nervous about that because I don't know where this 6-mile route will be taking us. And I'm a little weird about 'running out of my comfort zone'. And I'm scared that we may have to run down Poplar Avenue. And that would be b-a-d. But I think there are some neighborhood streets behind that shopping center. I hope so. I'm running with Julie the Mentor tomorrow because George the Coach is running in the Sedona Marathon this weekend.