My computer nearly shut itself down just now, because the battery ran out and I didn’t want to stand up to get the cord. Because I am sore. SORE. As per The Schedule, I spent my afternoon running for an hour and a half and then immediately biking for a half hour and then stretching for ten minutes and then icing for twenty minutes and I feel like a ZOMBIE, except without the energy to feast on the living. Just the kind of zombie who lies around being undead, and occasionally moaning.

The marathon is in thirteen days. Two weeks from right now it will all be over. My repertoire of exclamations is insufficient to express my happiness about this. Tomorrow I am presenting my mater’s thesis and is that worrying me? No. What is worrying me at the moment is that I am somehow going to have to run for upwards of FOUR HOURS, in a row, ideally without an i.v. and – as the blogname suggests – with no jetpack whatsoever. How will this happen? I do not know.

My Plan A at the moment is the surfacing of some as-yet-undiscovered reserve of physical and mental capacity on the day of the event. I am also counting on adrenaline, crowd energy, and music. The piece of marathon advice I have encountered most frequently is do not do anything for the first time on the day of your marathon. No new socks that might rub you wrong, no new breakfast that might make you queasy. You’re even supposed to train with the specific brand of drink your marathon provides. But I am breaking this rule – along with assorted others like training with the specific brand of energy drink my marathon provides – by carrying an mp3 player on the day of. I haven’t done it ever, and I don’t even own one yet. But I’ve decided that this will be my version of the swimmer’s pre-race shave. It will be a big mental boost when I’ve prepared myself for no boost. And though I realize that I risk some angry bloody arm wound where the new player clings, I just can’t say I care. I am also alarmingly unconcerned about cheating myself out of part of the experience, or soaking it all in, or whatever. When I have run for an hour and a half and I feel like vomiting and passing out, I will pop those annoying buds into my ears and listen to Big & Rich and I Feel Lucky and the theme song from Chariots of Fire, and I will run for three more hours. If anyone has song recommendations, please pass them on and I will busy myself with some downloading.

And now, back to the PowerPoint that I will use to present two years of research and writing to all of the faculty and students I know. As if there’s anything intimidating about that, when it doesn’t even require stretching.