am I ready? I'm not so sure...

I ended up not running the mileage I needed for my last week before taper. All weekend I went back and forth on if I would really confess about my mileage. I'm feeling overly guilty and a lot worried at this point. Oh and slightly embarrassed. There is nothing left for me to do and honestly I took training too lax thanks to a multitude of excuses. On my vacation I relaxed too much, I didn't take training seriously when I should have, my work travel schedule, the holidays, my ankle is hurts worse thank when I broke a bone in my foot, I had 1 or 2 too many drinks... I can go on but I won't. I didn't put the miles in and I extremely worried I'm going to pay race weekend. But I have about 3 weeks to worry about that. Hopefully, I'll find some fabulous runners to pull me through race day or dig down deep and find something in this 30 years old body to get me through to the finish line and not feel like death. We shall see ;)

Enough of my depressing race ready talk. This weekend happened to be Christmas #1 at the in-laws in central Illinois. Luckily I did pretty good on all the nieces and nephews gifts - yea me! And it was fun seeing the extended family Saturday night. Sunday was fun with the immediate family Christmas. Again I think I scored even though I felt rushed to find the perfect gift.

Before we left for Christmas #1 on Friday I ran 19 miles in 14 degree F weather. It should have been 20 miles but at 18.5 I was done mentally and headed home. Because of the ice around here much of my path is closed so I ended up running a 3.6 mile loop. I had to pass the path to my home about 4 times before I just turned to go home. Besides the layers of clothes annoying me and weighing me down I thought I had lost my chin due to frostbite so I was ready to go home and get some lunch before hitting the road. It was a weird run and I never found my cadence partly because of the loop and partly because I felt rushed. Gah! I returned home not happy with myself and seriously doubting how I'll finish come January... I really hope I'm only being too hard on myself right now. Now it's time for taper just in time for Christmas!

It's February 1st and I'm trapped in my house under 6 ft of snow!

It's February 1st and that means one thing. Okay maybe more but really one thing in my book. Registration for the 2008 Chicago Marathon opened today. Now you all may remember how much fun I had at my inaugural 2007 Chicago Marathon run. And because of that I feel like I need to take another crack at it. I don't really want my only memories of the Chicago Marathon to be tainted with what happened the first time. But then on the other hand I have a gazillion things going on this year. Usually I have nothing to do and I have time to train to keep me out trouble. Instead this year I am standing up in two dear friends weddings (back to back), I was just assigned to this crazy study in which I will be traveling a lot (no I did not get my lead position I was so desperately hoping for), and I have my own wedding to plan and partake in about 6 weeks before the big race. And with all that going on to I really have the extra money it takes to get me ready for the marathon (entry fees, fuel, new non-smelly workout clothes, shoes, etc)?!? It's a lot to think about. Plus the fact whenever I mention I am thinking about signing up everything gets this look of fear/shock/you're an idiot on their face and exclaims "Why? Are you crazy? Don't you remember what happened last year/Do you really have time to prepare with everything going on?" So all of their comments are kind of getting me down.

I'll let you know what I decide but in the meantime I would love to hear what you all have to think about my minor dilemma :)