The vacation has started! Sitting in the United lounge, finished my calls for the day and I am about to board the plane for San Francisco - from one great American city to another!

Plans so far:
Thursday;
- work at SFO airport for 4 hours while I wait for NAN to land
- pick up rental car
- drive….. um somewhere

Friday
- no plans

Saturday
- Stay in Eureka the night before the marathon

Sunday
- Run race

Monday
- no plans

Tuesday
- no plans

Wednesday
- no plans

Thursday
- get wasted in San Francisco for NAN!’s 21st birthday

Friday
- fly home (to Calgary)

I am really really really looking forward to this, well everything except for that run.

I’M STRESSED!

No-one would ever accuse me of over training - but I have taken this to a whole new level.

I have not run a long run for a month, I have not run at all for 3 week - that means nothing, zip, nadda. I did do the long hike (45 km) on 24th of September but that is not running. I always have anxiety before a marathon (well at least the 2 I have done), but this time it’s a bit different.

So here is the goal for the Redwoods Marathon:

1. aim for a slower pace 3:50 - 4 hours
2. take lots of Advil - I took 7 during Victoria so let’s make that the floor
3. mentally prepare for quite a lot of pain
4. put lots of angry music on the iPod shuffle - I’ll need it for the last 21 km

My meetings in London went really well so that was nice. Surprisingly I really enjoyed the city of London this time, I don’t know why but for a city that I usually hate and avoid like the plague I managed to enjoy myself - part of it may have been that I had a comfortable hotel room - and part of it may have been living in New York city. London doesn’t even come close to NYC for intensity or boldness, but it is a stunning city that I finally managed to appreciate.

Had my wonderful sister and her fiance in town for the weekend. Three days is not enough time in NYC, and you really need a comfortable pair of walking shoes else you end up with really sort feet… just ask her . It was awesome to spend some focused time with them trotting around the city - they were great guests as well as it was monsoon like rain on Saturday and we just put our shells on and still spent 4 or 5 hours walking the city and central park. I’m fairly certain most folks might not have been prepared to get that wet.

The happy couple:

Oh well, back to being stressed (I might try to get out for a little 15 k mental booster run.. but I fear that if it goes poorly then I will only get more stressed). I will run the marathon and if I need to cross the finish-line using my teeth to make forward progress I will, I promise.

I am currently in a weird rushed sense of life, which makes time, place and things seem odd (I’m in London, England but I may as well be in Yellowknife or Melbourne). I had Douglas and Ali in NYC for the weekend so I was out late drinking and smoking cigars and generally being unhealthy. Monday I was up reasonably early (7am) to try and get a bunch of work done, which would not have been so bad except for the wine and cigars the night before that kept me up past 2am or so. I then went to look at office space in the afternoon in the financial district (Wall St.) for 4 hours, and then rushed to catch a plane at JFK to take the red-eye to London.

Upon arriving in London I took the to tube to my hotel checked in early, worked for an hour, slept for an hour and have been working pretty straight since - with the exception of a long supper. So 16 hours after landing I am not sure what timezone I am in… its 1am here, 8 pm in NYC and 6pm in Calgary where all the folks I have been working with for the past 8 hours are….

Big meetings tomorrow and the next day and then I fly back to NYC to entertain my sister and her other half for the weekend.. that will be fun. Then I fly to San Francisco on Thursday to run the marathon on the weekend. I will need the couple of days of decompression.

As far as marathon training; well it seems to have stopped - I have not ‘run’ in a couple of weeks…. I don’t know why I do this to myself before these long runs.

Off to bed for me.