The End of Easy

We are officially in week 5 of marathon training now.  I'm counting down to the Beijing marathon on Oct. 14.  Or on Oct. 21.  To be determined.  You know, because why would you need an exact date when it's still 4 months away. 

Thankfully, there is now a countdown calendar posted on the English language website, and it also appears to be counting down to Oct. 14, which will be good.  We'll in Beijing that day and I'll be ready to run. 

I'm finally less nervous.  If the marathon doesn't work out, we'll still have an awesome trip to China and there is going to be so much to see.  One of our neighbors (not the neighbors we love, this is one we don't know well yet) is from Taiwan and she has some relatives visiting her right now, and we've been invited for dinner and a night of Chinese conversation in a few weeks -- so I'm trying to focus even more on my studies! 

Anyway, in looking at my vague marathon training calendar (well, it's not vague, it's just a matter of determining exactly when that taper phase will begin), I realized that I need to enjoy this week.  It's the end of easy.  We will still have tons of "easy pace" miles on the schedule in the weeks ahead.  But starting next week, every single week there will be something "not easy."  At times it may be just a few sets of pick-ups during an easy run, or a couple miles of race pace during a long run, or an easy run but on hills. 

But it's a sign that we're finally moving out of the base-building phase of training and getting into strength.  Exciting and scary.  I have a lot of trip planning to do before we go!  And a lot of language studying!