It’s the final countdown!!!

October is a marathon month for me, literally – Long Beach Half Marathon this Sunday followed by the Detroit Free Press Half Marathon on October 21st. Have I trained enough? Hell no. Am I packed and ready to go? Nope. Have I at least got myself into the mental groove? No heck way, as my Grand-Daddy would say.

Usually, I hit race week with a sense of excitement, anticipation and energy. This time around, I can also add trepidation and nerves.

Every runner is guilty of self-doubt at some point in their training. While I have been racing a lot, I haven’t been as dedicated to my training as I have in the past. My last run was an 8K last Wednesday with my running buddy. I felt energetic and healthy, but, I’ve totally neglected the long-slow Sunday run. Traveling and racing has meant a lot of shorter, faster substitute runs.

In two days, I will board a plane to Toronto where I’ll rendezvous with my sister, TW2, and depart for Long Beach on Friday morning. We’ll have a day and a half to acclimatize, hit the race expo and hydrate. Topping my list of things to do is to find an awesome patio in front on the harbour and watch the yachts sail by – glass of water in one hand and a bottle of beer in the other.

But, in typical California fashion, race day comes early – 7am early. On one hand, I appreciate the chance to race during the cooler part of the day before the sun comes out to scorch us all, but, the ungodly start time means I am a) grumpy, b) not limber, and c) grumpy. Did I say grumpy? The only thing working in our favour is the 2 hours we gain going out to California.

As is usual, it’s all about the bling: and this race is, perhaps, the most important race to date. By finishing Long Beach Half Marathon, TW2 and I will have completed the final race in the Beach Cities Challenge (BCC), thereby earning ourselves a really awesome, really large blingy-blingy!

Allow me to reminisce about the day all of this craziness started: TW2 and I travelled to Huntington Beach, California in February to race the Surf City Half Marathon. It was TW2’s race pick for the year (mine was the Baltimore Half Marathon on October 14). In other words, we agreed to run two half marathons in 2012. Count 'em - TWO. It started an avalanche of half marathons that would see us return to California three more times in 2012 and led to us signing up for the Louisiana Half Marathon and the A1A Fort Lauderdale Half Marathon. One little race, so many spin-offs!

It was at the race expo in Huntington Beach, that our eyes spied the Holy Grail that is the Beach Cities Challenge medal. It’s massive, it weighs a ton and it’s a huge badge of honour to earn at the end of the last race. Anyone running Surf City, OC or Long Beach knows what the BCC is and any runner with a competitive spirit wants the medal.

Bringing one of these bad boys home with me. Look out, aeroport security!

One conquers the Beach Cities Challenge by consecutively completing any combination of full or half marathons at the Long Beach International City Bank Marathon, Surf City Marathon, and the OC Marathon. After checking dates, I decided to forfeit Baltimore in October in order to allow us to run Long Beach. That way, we only needed to add one more half, Orange County, in May and we would earn our challenge medal.

We finished Surf City in 2:16.19 and Orange County in 2:11.25. One way or another, I'm getting my ass across that line under 2:10. Why not add a personal best to the mix?!

The anticipation of having that medal hung around my neck is insane! It’s been eight months of training and racing, but, that moment is literally days away!

And the best part? TW2 will be right there beside me to share the moment with!

Then, it's on to Detroit two weeks later...how could I resist the '53 Corvette medal?!

Happy trails, fellow runners!