20 days blogging to the NY Marathon

20 days, 16 hours, 28 minutes and 30 seconds until the marathon on November 2nd.  I have been preparing for this since January 2013.  I became a member of New York Road Runners, ran in 9 qualifying races in 2013, and volunteered at the 2013 NYC Half Marathon.  This year I've run almost 500 miles so far, spent hundreds and hundreds on entry fees, membership fees, virtual training programs, and energy gels.  There is no other option but running on November 2nd, I will walk or crawl if needed.

My knee is STILL hurting, and my training has suffered a lot.  For the last 4 weeks, I have done very little running.  Today was supposed to be a 19 mile run, the longest in the training program and would have been my longest run ever.  So I'm getting nervous.  I have got to get better.  

I can feel my hips, lower back, legs, and IT band are still really tight, so I went to hot yoga tonight.  And I feel great.  The key to relieving my knee pain is going to be loosening up all of these areas.  Tomorrow is a day off from all fitness, and I'm hoping to do an easy, pain-free run on Tuesday.  My strategy is yoga, stretching, foam rolling and gentle running for the next 20 days.  And Epson salt and ice.  I will be taping everything on race day.

Ideally, I would love to do 10 miles next Sunday and then taper for the remaining 2 weeks.  Wish me luck!  I am going to blog every day until the race.