9 Days.

As I get nearer to my first marathon, I find myself becoming consumed by it. I'm constantly thinking about it, checking the BRF Facebook page, hell, I'm even having dreams about running in it. I'm so excited for it to be next Saturday because a) I'll finally be running my first marathon, b) I'll be done with my first marathon, and c) I can get into the gym and back to normal activities. That last one is basically because this taper is starting to make me a little stir-crazy.

Next week is definitely going to be hard for me to focus because with every passing day, I'll be one day closer to my marathon, and it's going to be difficult to sleep. However, given my experiences swimming in big championship meets in college, I think I should be able to manage relatively well. Granted, a marathon is a completely different monster, and a totally new experience, but I figure I'll likely not get a ton of sleep the last few nights anyway, so as long as I keep myself well hydrated and stretch a lot, I should be ok.

Next Thursday and Friday is the BRF Health and Fitness Expo. Basically it's where you go to pick up your race bib and get your goody bag, as well as check out all the cool things the vendors have on display and for sale. While there will be many shoe companies with the latest, top-of-the-line running shoes available, this is not the place to buy the shoes you run your marathon in. It's probably not even where you'd want to buy shoes for a 5k you'd be running one or two days later. Besides all the featured products, etc. that are available, there are also a lot of other cool services and amenities that the BRF offers,  most notably the GEICO pace groups, which provide experienced marathoners who will pace whoever signs up for the group to a specific time (I think it's in ten minute intervals from 3 hours to 4 hours, and then fifteen minute intervals from 4 hours to 5:15). I'm still trying to debate whether or not I want to sign up for one of these, mostly because I'm not sure I want to even-split the entire race, and I also want to be able to listen to my playlist and focus on my own race. I would like to be able to have some sort of pacing besides my watch, so I might try to tag along with a group until I decide to pick up or ease up on my pace. Another service offered by the Baltimore Running Festival is the ability for people to track runners via text message or e-mail, which is perfect for me since none of my family will be able to attend the race. For those interested, go to this website and enter my name into the runner info. It will give you updates when I cross the halfway point (13.1 miles), 19.5 miles, and when I finish. If you sign up for text updates, it says you have to respond to the text message they send you when you register in order for it to actually work.

In other news, the 49ers are 3-1! Even after they started 2-1, I was still pretty skeptical because both their wins were rather unconvincing, and they lost a game to Cowboys, who never should have had the chance to come back into that game. But all that aside, they really showed me, and other Niner faithful something this past weekend when they scored 21 straight points to overcome a 20-point second half deficit against a team in the Philadelphia Eagles that in the preseason it seemed everyone (including themselves) was picking to go to, and probably even to win the Super Bowl. I'm not going to get overly excited, because there's still three-quarters of the season left, and thus plenty of time for them to blow it, but I must say that at this point, I am pleasantly surprised and cautiously optimistic that they will have a good season. That being said, they also do play in the NFC West, which is in all honesty the worst division in the NFL, which should give them a pretty decent chance of winning it and making it to the playoffs.

Today is also the first day of the NHL regular season, and while the Sharks have been perennial regular season dominators and postseason chokers, I have a feeling this year could finally be the year they put it all together and win it all. I also thought last year they were going to ride the momentum of the Giants' World Series victory to a Stanley Cup, but...they didn't.

There's a decent chance I might go to Spain the first week in April (my cousin Tyler is spending a year there teaching English in Cuenca, Spain, you can read about his adventures here), depending on my finances and airfare. I'm pretty excited about the prospect, and even though it would only be a week, it would still be awesome. Traveling in and around Europe is relatively cheap, so there's also the possibility of visiting other countries as well, but again, it would only be a week, and there's only so much you can do in a week, so I wouldn't want to spread myself too thin.

Well, back to marathon stuff. Even though I haven't even run my first marathon yet, I'm already highly considering registering for the 2012 San Francisco Marathon, which is at the end of July. Obviously I have to wait and see how next Saturday goes, and based on that experience decide whether or not I want to do it. It would be perfect though, since if I end up going to Spain, the week I get back would begin my 16-week marathon prep cycle. But again, I'll have to wait and see if I even enjoy myself and determine if it's something I want to do again. However, chances are since I already have the idea in my head, any positive (or basically anything other than totally abysmal) experience will probably lead to me registering with a week (let's be honest, probably the next day). Plus, it'll be another chance for me to get home for a couple days.

And while I'm on the subject of endurance events, I'm also thinking about registering for the DC/Maryland Tough Mudder and/or the Maryland Warrior Dash. If you're not familiar with these events, they're trail races (with lots of mud) with a bunch of obstacles. They're essentially the same, except that the Warrior Dash is about 5k (3.1 miles) and the Tough Mudder varies between 9-12 miles (for those interested, more info here and here).

Well, that was definitely more than I was planning to talk about, and I likely won't provide any updates until my blow-by-blow recap of the marathon (hopefully to come the Sunday after the race but I'm not making any promises). Wish me luck!