T Minus 12 Days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ready or not, here I come.  I am 12 days out from my first marathon.  I have in some sort of way been preparing my mind and/or body for this for over a year.  Charleston Marathon I am on my way!
I am not going to lie and say that I am as ready as I will ever be, because I am not.  I could have trained more but, I am a wife and mother first.  Life happens and logging all of the runs that my plan called for just didn't happen.  I do not think I will finish in near the time that I initially set out to do but, I am confident that I WILL FINISH and I WILL HAVE FUN.  At this point I will say that I believe this will not be my first and last marathon.  I have enjoyed my training for the most part.  The training I did was a plan that I downloaded from Marathon Nation .  I felt like the plan was totally doable and didn't take me away from my family for hours on end.  I will say that I have had to tweak the plan the last month or so due to life =) .
In the last month, I have teamed up with a long time friend for runs.  She is doing the half marathon of this race.  She has really done a great job!  I am not sure if we have enjoyed our running together in itself, or 2 + hours of adult conversation the most.  Now, we are looking forward to a little retail therapy along with our marathon weekend.

Any advice for my final 12 days?

Anyone else running the Charleston Marathon?

A Little PR today

I took it to the track today and had very surprising and unexpected results. With my warm up and cool down I did 4 miles in around 32 minutes. In that I did my fastest 5k to date. 

Pretty proud but it still doesn't make me look forward to track work and running without music.  I absolutely despise running with no music which I find odd. There are probably days if not full weeks that go by sometimes that I don't have the radio on iny car. So why can I drive

with no music and totally enjoy it but, can't stand to run without music. Also, I am trying this 30 day plank challenge I have been seeing posted everywhere. I am starting on day 9. I really need to work on core strength so figure this is one way to do it. 

On another note I DVR'd the NYC marathon in hopes that one day I could watch it. Well, that day is today. My husband only has to work a night shift about twice a year and tonight is one of those nights. That means the tv is ALL MINE. I never dreamed that one day I would have control of the remote and would choose to watch people run!!  My how things can change. 

How do you cope running without music?

Do you plank for core strength?

How has running changed your life or daily routine?