Real David H.

This is my final pre-marathon post. It’s almost hard to believe that it’s been a year since I made this commitment and now it all comes down to a surviving a bum knee. Whether I finish in less than 4 hours or more than 5 hours, I’m determined to do this. I’ve come close to backing out a few times in the past couple of weeks, but there’s no stopping me now.
With just a day or so to go, here are some other thoughts:

* To Tweet or not to Tweet — I’ve taken my phone with me on most of my long runs since July and captured some cool photos along the way and documented some thoughts on Twitter. It’s been fun doing that. I’m undecided whether or not to take my phone with me on the marathon. I’ve thought about taking my phone with me too to listen to music on the stretches of the race that get a little quiet. As friendly as the Richmond Marathon says it is (or Runner’s World says it is), there are a few parts of the course after the halfway point that might need something. I’m not one to get motivated by music, but who knows how a Dave Matthews Band song might pick me up if I’m feeling down.

* The weather continues to look awesome: high 30s/low 40s at the start; temperature around 60 mid-day. You can’t beat that.

* I’ve been very impressed with the marathon folks and how they’ve communicated on Facebook in the past couple of weeks. I hope other big races out there are taking note. Answering other people’s questions, posting contests, providing links to important marathon information … they’ve been doing it all. Now comes the challenge of not being so quiet the 11 other months of the year.

* I have no idea which shoes to wear. I have two Brooks Ravenna that I’m wearing with totally different mileage: one pair is just under 250 miles and still have a good 100 miles left in them. The other pair has less than 50 miles. The newer pair was going to be the marathon pair, but cutting back on mileage has drastically reduced how many miles I hoped to have in them, and the type of running has been totally different. It’s been the slower, injured miles in those shoes, complete with no run longer than 8 miles. I think I’d be fine with either choice, but I’ll probably pack both pairs tonight. Maybe I’ll just flip a coin Saturday morning to make that decision.

* There’s a Daily Mile meet-up planned tomorrow. I hope I can make it; it’ll be nice to put real faces to people I know only virtually. The support on Daily Mile has helped get me through this year and even more so in the past few weeks.

* This is non-marathon related, but #runchat returns to Twitter this Sunday at 8 p.m. ET with me and @iRunnerBlog (aka Scott). The chat includes another giveaway this week from Zensah. Scott has all the details on how you can become eligible to win this great prize on his site here.

(Speaking of giveaways, check out my post from yesterday about winning an entry to the Blue Ridge Marathon in Roanoke, Va., in April.)