Fit Fun Mom

One day left until the Santa Barbara International Marathon! I slept well last night, which as we all know is a Very Good Thing two nights before a race. It’s not uncommon to have trouble sleeping the night before a big race due to nerves and having to get up early to eat and get to the race start. That lack of sleep is not likely to hurt your race performance much as long as you got a good night’s sleep two nights before the race.

In spite of sleeping well, there was one tiny hitch. I forgot to tell myself not to dream about the marathon. I can influence my subconscious that way — for years I had to tell myself not to dream that I had gone back to work as a lawyer, a true nightmare! Anyway, I was so tired from the drive up here last night that I just curled up in bed at 10:15 p.m. and went right to sleep. A blessing and a curse.

I dreamt I got a DNS (did not start). I ran straight out the door of my hotel to what I thought was the marathon course, but then had trouble following it. I tried to follow some other runners but then I realized that I’d joined them halfway into the loop at the start of the marathon course, and I had gone the wrong way. I backtracked and did what I thought I was supposed to, but I came upon a huge road that was backed up with traffic. Some people offered me a ride in their car and without thinking, I got in! I got out again before we started moving, and I started running again, but then I realized I hadn’t ever crossed the official starting line of the race and the timing mat, so whatever I was running didn’t count anyway. At that point I started berating myself for choosing a small-town race that was so poorly organized and so poorly marked (I love how my subconscious totally blamed the race organizers in spite of the fact that I was the one who thought the race started right outside my hotel room door!) In my dream I decided I might as well get a training run in and I could choose another marathon to run the following weekend. My husband texted a map of Vancouver, British Columbia. I have no idea if there’s a race there or not in real life but I’ve always wanted to go there because I keep hearing how pretty it is. So with renewed energy in my dream, I started running again, until I came upon a girl who had fallen off her scooter and scraped her knee. She reminded me of my four-year-old, and I stopped to carry her home to her mother. The end. (Except I also dreamed that I started writing a blog post about how the race was an EPIC FAIL. It all seemed very real to me!)

So yeah. Major stress dream. I’m “just a little” nervous. The one good thing is that in my dream, when I was running, I felt great. My injuries did not bother me and I felt strong. So that’s the feeling I am determined to take from that dream and put into reality tomorrow. That, and I’m going to go drive the marathon course today, just to reassure me, myself, and my subconscious. 😉