Here’s a short story for you guys: I went to bed last night and the clock said “11pm”. I woke up and it said “8:50am”.

Holy moly, Batman, that’s almost 10 hours of sleep!! I can’t even remember the last time that has happened. Clearly I forgot to set my alarm, but this is one of those mornings where I am grateful to be working from home and setting my own hours. I must have been pretty tired!

Since it is marathon week (yikes!) – or excuse me, I should be saying half-marathon week so that people don’t think that I have lost my mind, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it – I feel pretty good about my extra sleep. Everyone always says that you don’t sleep well the night before your race, so you should build up a little bit of extra rest earlier in the week.

In fact, there is kind of a whole checklist of things to be “storing up” earlier in the week that I’ve gathered from everything that I’ve read and everyone that I’ve talked to. I thought I would share it with you guys so that you know what my week looks like this week!

• Stay well hydrated – make your water bottle your new best friend!
• Get some extra sleep, so that come race morning your 5am wakeup call won’t be too terrible
• Rest. I’ll say it again – rest, rest, rest. No hard runs or workouts! Just a few easy ones to stay loose
• Carboload. Not to a crazy extent, but a few extra pieces of toast here and there can help build glycogen stores in your muscles
• Charge your iPod/phone/watch so that they’re ready to go
• Make sure that your race outfit is clean, and lay out all of your essentials the night before
• Pick up your race packet
• Make a plan for before and after the race – you don’t want any surprises on race day!
• Have fun and relax!

All in all, I’ve been trying to stick to the things on this list. I’ve been guzzling water, going to bed earlier, skipping hot yoga and heavy weight-lifting for fear of being sore, sneaking some extra carbs into my day, and preparing my essentials for race-day.

It seems like only yesterday I was announcing my new-found love for running and my crazy plan to run the half-marathon! These past few months have been both tough and rewarding, and I cannot believe that D-day is almost here. Three more days and I will (hopefully) be a half-marathoner!