Just got paid, Friday night, Party huntin', feelin' right

You know the song so sing along!

As much as I would like to say that this is the theme song of my life it couldn't be any further from the truth. In fact, if it were my life's theme song it would sound more like this:

Got no job, Friday night, 8:00pm bedtime, Legs feel tight
Bottles made up, Gel flasks too
Alarm is set for, a lil after 2

That sounds more like the Friday nights of late. I was hoping that last weekend was going to be the last of the really long workouts and the taper would begin. I was hoping that I'd be able to stay up a little later on a Friday night and sleep in a little more on Saturday (or should I say Friday night). Unfortunately that is not the case. Tomorrow is another long training day. I will start by 3:45am and hope to finish by 8:00pm. Just enough time to eat, go back to sleep and do it again on Sunday.

The race is four weeks from tomorrow. 29 days from this very moment I will be 14 hours into the race and it will not even be halfway complete. 29 days sounds far away right? Well to me it is close enough that I get sick to my stomach thinking about it but far enough away for me to say, "I've got plenty of time!" Part of me wants the race to be here now but the other part of me never wants the race to get here. One minute I say, "I am so excited about this race" and the next I'm saying, "What the heck was I thinking?"

The reality is my race is right around the corner. Over the past few months I have put in some serious training time. My weekends are completely devoted to training. If I were employed full time there would be no way I would have made it this far. Along the way I've made plenty of sacrifices and have justified things many times over. I've had good times and bad times. I've smiled and cried. I've ridden my bike through both sunrises and sunsets, and lately they have been on the same day. Through all of this I have learned a lot about myself. That is partly why I did this. To test myself and put me into unfamiliar territory where I would need to dig deep inside myself. Deep down I am optimistic about this race and hope to come out of this experience a better person. I have so much more to give in life. Lately I've been feeling as if my life is just now ready to begin. That everything I've done in the past has molded me into what I am today. Each and every experience, both positive and negative, has impacted me and helped me to find myself. I feel like I am so close to finding the answers I am looking for. I feel as if I am ready to live and ready to give. I've made it to this point in my life with only one regret and that, more then anything, has helped fuel this fire inside of me to figure out who I am and why I'm here.

The clock is about to strike 8:00pm. The dog is fast asleep and I am not to far behind her. A few hours from now I will be back out on the bike, in the dark, alone with my thoughts. Good night!