The home stretch

Originally uploaded by tallasiandude.

It's exactly one week until the race. Hopefully by this time next week, I'll have completed my first (and possibly only) marathon.

I've been able to start looking ahead to what the weather's going to be like on the long-range forecasts -- in the last 2 days they've gone from cloudy to 40% chance of showers, with lows in the 40s to highs in the upper 50s.

On the health front, things are also still feeling a bit shaky. While I can still visualize having a good race, I've continued to be unable to shake the cough and congestion and I'm pushing out my last long run -- a 10-miler -- one more day in the hopes that it will allow my immune system to recover enough so that the run won't drop me back into full-on sick mode and that it might be a little warmer and be a little easier on my lungs.

Wishful thinking. Still trying to be positive, I swear.

But I gotta say, this turning 40 business really hasn't gone according to plan. Or maybe it's just like I planned it, just not the outcome that I was looking for. Like one of those cursed monkey-claw wishes where you wish for world peace and then we get invaded by aliens or something.