T minus 4 Days

I'm beside myself that the Philadelphia Marathon is just a few short days away. I've been training four and a half months for this puppy, and its just about upon me.

I feel confident about how I will do, barring any unforeseen circumstances. I'm not cocky, by any means, but I think I've trained well enough.

"Well enough" is the operative word here. I was supposed to run 4x per week (Tues-Thurs and a weekend run). Except for the first 3 weeks, I've missed AT LEAST one run per week, sometimes two. The upside is that I never missed the two longer runs of the week, just the short runs mid-week (tues and/or thurs).

Am I concerned it'll affect me finishing? No. Do I think it will affect my potential of finishing faster? Yeah. I don't have any major time goals going into this, just to finish. My soft goal however is to finish between 4:45 - 5hrs. I'm still debating whether I should 'challenge' myself and go for the faster time or just head out, enjoy it and take it slow and finish around 5hrs or whenever.

I'm certainly not going to stress about it or give it too much thought, because after all there will be people crossing the finish line almost 3 hours before me. . Here's to the pokies bringing up the rear!

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In other news, Mr. Ian came down with Croup. It all started while Allison was away this weekend. Around 3am Sunday morning, Ian woke up crying. I was already awake and downstairs as Little Miss Sleep-Is-For-Suckers decided around 1:30 that that she was having none of this "eyes-closed and lie motionless" stuff that normal people do in the middle of the night.

So anyway, I went upstairs and Ian was soaked (from sweat, not pee). I changed him and gave him some motrin because he was really warm, and got him back to sleep. Well, that lasted all of an hour. He proceeded to wake up screaming absolute bloody murder around 4 (yeah, Babycakes and I were still up). I heard him through the monitor (which was in the next room) yelling "Daddy!!! Daddy!!!! Where are you???" and then something else.

I ran upstairs and he was friggin hysterical. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever seen him this upset. Actually, I take that back. Maybe when he hurt his arm and ended up getting a cast...but I think he was more upset this past weekend. Anyway, when I got upstairs he kept yelling that he saw ghosts, that they were in the hallway, there was one under the bed, one IN the bed and then he screamed that there was one behind me.

Okay, so I'm gonna take off my 'superdad/nothing-bothers-me' hat for a second. Little Haley Joel Osment over here freaked me the fuck out. Of course I hugged him and reassured him, but I'd be remiss if I didn't admit that I looked around the room. Mostly to try to figure out what Ian saw to make him think there were ghosts, but also to see if I crapped myself for any good reason.

Needless to say he wasn't going back to sleep by himself, and since Leah was downstairs, I brought him down with me. We just chilled on the couch watching TV for the next hour while Leah played on the floor oblivious to the supernatural phenomena going on in our house. I finally got those two yahoos to sleep by 5am and we were sacked out til around 9.

After that, Ian was hoarse, had a barky cough and fever. You could hear him wheezing and tell that he wasn't very comfortable. It was really sad to see him cough and then watch him make a really painful expression on his face. We took him to the pediatrician Monday morning and the doctor confirmed that he did have Croup.

I didn't realize that it could go away rather quickly, as he re-assured us that Ian wouldn't be contagious and could go to school on Thursday. He still has a junky cough every now and again, but the fever is gone and his voice is almost back to normal.

Oh yeah, let me tell you about that. Since Sunday Ian has been complaining that he wants his 'real voice' back. Well, we have a humidifier going in his room and I've been using that as a tactic to get Ian to take a nap. If he balked or asked why he needed to, I just told him that being in the room with the humidifier would help his voice. No joke, he would hop into bed and then get into his little 'sleeping' position (as opposed to the lie on his back and stay awake and ask a million questions position).

Today though, the little weasel tried to tell me that his voice was better. I was able to convince him that he needed just a little more time in there, especially if he wanted to go to school tomorrow. Well, that bought me a 2hr 10min nap. Booyah!

Okay, thats about it. I'll update this puppy with a good race report in a week or so when we get back.