A civilized way to start the day....

As I am tapering for what I hope to be a personal best road marathon on Sunday, I have re-discovered what billions of others have known all along...

Getting up at 2:30 in the morning to bike or run is for crazy people!

This week, I have not been pressing myself in the morning as I want to be as fresh and rested for Sunday as possible.  It is like I have discovered a new way to live....

I have been reaquainted with this really cool concept called sleeping in. 

I am not reading my morning regimen of the WSJ and IBD while pedalling my bike on a trainer.  It is actually possible to read in bed with the morning news on.  Something I have heard other people accomplishing.  I found the whole practuce pretty cool.

I am actually laying around having a cup of tea with my wife during an hour that starts with 5 in front of it.

I am not eating at 2:30 a.m., 5:00 a.m. and then grabbing something at 6:30 on the way in to work because I am still hungry.  (Usually followed by snacks at 10:00, lunch at 11:30, a snack at 2, dinner at 6....Yes, I eat 7 times a day not counting other random grazes.)

I would call this a very civilized way to start the day.  I will enjoy it for another day or so.

I am ready to race on Sunday.  I crushed 8 miles yesterday in under 49 minutes and could have kept running that pace for a while.  Using 2009 SF Marathon results, if I rock a  3:10, I can finish in around 100th place out of about 5,500 runners last year or top 2% of all finishers.  So, I have made that my official goal...to finish in the Top 100!  I physically have it in me.

My best ultra marathon finish was last year when I did a 30 miler in 3:45 or so on a trail.  If I can mimic that performance, I will probably hit my goal.  The night before that race, because I was using the race as a training run for Ironman, I nearly ate a whole pepperoni pizza and had two ginger martinis.   I obviously did not take the race seriously...I remember running on the trail calling Christine, my mom, my friend Brent and a few others while on the trail telling them that I was currently in 3rd place at mile 20. 

Being superstitious like that....

Christine, my one woman support army, has already provisioned some vanilla vodka and fresh ginger for my pre night race prep.  It worked once, maybe it will work again!

Now that is a civilized way to start a race!