Eugene in May is sunny until nearly nine, so my Sunday run was an evening bridge-to-bridge hour followed by half an hour on the bike to nowhere. After an hour and a half of constant motion, things were going just fine - which I find very encouraging. My knee gets a little tight these days, but it doesn’t hurt, and the stretching and icing seems to be keeping it under control. But then my run yesterday was 40 breathless minutes. And I wish I understood this.

I’m sure my bad runs correspond to something – sleep, hydration, nutrition, weather – but I sure can’t figure out what. And I wish I could, because I really don’t want marathon day to be a bad run day.

This week has had its share of marathon angst. Part came when I revisited the Beginner’s Guide to Running book that has been gathering bedside dust since February when I bought it, read about nutrition, and put it aside. Turns out there’s all kinds of good advice in there about things like core strength, which I don’t have. And now with three weeks to go it’s not such useful information. But I’m annoyed that I didn’t know to do these things sooner – the stretching and the weights and the exercises – and I guess if you’re a runner it’s obvious, but I didn’t know and my TnT coach didn’t mention it. And I think about how much stronger I could be and how much more ready I would feel, and ugh.

Also I read about the Anchorage course. It’s hilly. It’s hilly, and there aren’t many spectators, and miles of it in the middle are through quiet woods. Now back in January before I’d ever run anywhere this sounded beautiful and peaceful and scenic, but what I’ve learned about myself since then is that scenery does not motivate me. Though I’m excited to see Alaska, marathon-wise I think I’d do quite a bit better at one of the Rock n’ Roll marathons where every mile brings a new band. The other day I ran past a few guys jamming in the park and just that thirty seconds of music picked up my pace and my mood. So after putting it off all this time, I’m now planning to get an mp3 player for race day. It feels lame, but if it helps me finish, it can’t be such a bad idea.

So there’s me with eighteen days to go. Eck.