Underprepared

Have you ever studied your ass off for a test but when the day comes you just can’t shake this feeling like you didn’t do enough?

Or you’ve done a ton of mock interviews, studied a company’s entire profile, only to walk in on an interview like a deer in the headlights?

OR have you been running fairly consistently for the past two years and already completed a distance beyond what your race that is coming up for tomorrow is for only to feel like you’re going to shit yourself?

Please, for the love of sweet baby Jesus, tell me I’m not alone in this feeling. This underprepared nonsense that engulfs your whole body in ways that aren’t lady-like to talk about in a public setting feeling.

I am not a fan.

I’m gearing up to run a 10k tomorrow. One that I ran last year (and PRed on) and that when I registered for was very excited about. It set up nicely in my marathon training – I’m in week 4! And it just seemed like a good fit.

It also doesn’t hurt that I get to run through a freaking zoo. But what does hurt? The hills that are involved.

This is from my Garmin last year. So yeah. There’s that.

My time last year was 1:21:56, roughly a 13:13 minute per mile pace. I was way excited about that considering the difficulty of the course and I had done no hill training whatsoever prior to that. All I was concerned about was pooping. As in – not pooping myself and not having any monkeys throwing poo at me.

#runnerproblems, am I right?

The competitive part of me really wants to push to try PR (Personal Record, just in case you weren’t aware) but the logical, sane part of me that’s trying to hold its own concerning this marathon training I’ve gotten myself into is saying “This is just a training run. Nothing more. You don’t want to be injured before you even get to the starting line come March 2nd. Just chill.”

Maybe that’s where this feeling of dread and not being prepared is coming from – is not knowing which way I want to go? Or maybe I’m not actually prepared? Or maybe I am prepared but I just ate too many nachos today for lunch claiming I was carb loading and now my stomach is just getting me back?

Sigh.

I have no doubt I will cross the finish line tomorrow. That, to me, is not even question – it’s just being nervous that I won’t be able to report back that I am faster from this time last year (it is one of my resolutions, after all) and…

Fuck. I don’t know.

Tell me something good to get my mind off it. Or tell me something worse, so I can feel like a complete douche for being worried about something trivial.

Either way. Just tell me.