Preparathon.

It's nearly the end of April, which means I'm slated to run another marathon.

Wait, what? 

I feel like the publication of my lead-up blogs to October's Marine Corps Marathon happened about a week ago.

The feeling seems plausible when I consider that some circumstances surrounding the context for the event don't seem to have changed--at least on the surface. Despite adjusting the clocks, I still, for example, rise at otherwise idiotic hours during the week in order to complete early morning training runs. I still struggle to maintain a high energy level at work, struggling most during the hours of 1:00 and 3:00 p.m. when, I assume, the decision-making portion of my body wanders aimlessly through my insides in search of a place to sleep.

At a closer look, there are some differences this time around. For one, I'm not inventing and coaching a cross country program while logging my miles. And, although it might sound foreign to the general readers, there's a huge benefit in the fact that I no longer struggle when my body naturally wakes around 4:00 or 4:30 in the morning. In that vein, this time around it all feels more natural--and by that, I (might) mean I feel more like a machine than a human.

I am also far more comfortable with my new schedule at work. Unlike years past, the first semester on our new bell schedule took an extraordinary toll on my professional patience. I struggled with the paper in-take, the curriculum design, three new classes to teach and prep for, and a clientele of surprisingly needy students at vastly different levels.

Credit for part of this efficiency can go to my coach and teammates. While the bulk of my marathon running colleagues set their sights on December's California International Marathon (CIM), I had recovered from D.C. and began addressing areas of improvement for April. CIM marks the unofficial end of our racing and training season as a team, so I found myself running and training in a status of limbo. I had ambition to build a foundation; everyone else needed the rest I'd just enjoyed.

So I decided--the week before Christmas, in fact--to establish the habit of running every day. It wasn't a belief that the schedule would increase my chances of success in Eugene, per se, but a challenge to myself that I could evolve (I was a naysayer on the practice as recently as spring 2011). And so I planned never to run fewer than 6 miles a day--pre-race 4-mile runs notwithstanding--and began building up the mental and physical fortitude I felt I needed to perform at a higher level.

Now, sitting here in the pre-dawn hours of my last Monday before Eugene, I'm forced to grapple with the monster my training has created. I want to run. Badly. Yet, my coach, the man to whom I attributed much of my earlier gratitude, has scheduled a day off.

Really? I had planned on time off, but only after the marathon. This level of consistency was supposed to represent one of the ways I would evolve as a runner. Running seven days a week became an integral factor in separating the next me from the former.

What to do...

Look, I'm no fool. Goals like these, when one pragmatically considers the reality of marathon-day performance, should fall by the wayside. Unlike October's peak mileage week (63), this time around I topped out at 75. Unlike my overall speed workouts and marathon mileage pace goal (6:45), my splits have shortened (6:20) and my endurance has increased. To think that I haven't already evolved would be to ignore reality. I've sent weekly emails to my coach for the past year and half, carefully detailing the seconds and splits of my workouts and races. He knows about my 7-days-a-week decision, and so he knows what my body needs heading into the race.

So as I wrap this up and look toward the teaching day, I will force myself to gracefully admit defeat because, as I noted, logic prescribed by professional training strategies should win battles against my kind of pride. Running every day solely for the sake of saying, "I run ever day," has no place on a regimented training calendar.

Whatever foolish desire I have to defy the calendar and sneak in a quick 2 or 4 mile jog can save itself for the final 2 miles on Sunday. More than the pride I'm struggling with now, I'll need that kind of recklessness to propel me through the tape on Hayward Field.