11 days 22 hours 39 minutes 54 seconds...

I start most mornings by pulling up the official Chicago Marathon website and watching the online clock tick-tick-tick down the minutes and seconds until race day. It's almost surreal. My friend Neal, who is also running the marathon, has had the clock on his desktop since day 336. In a phone call to me the other day he said, "I'm FREAKING OUT watching this thing move closer to single digits."

I'm in my taper, which means cutting back on intensity and mileage. Some runners enjoy the taper and the break that come with it, but most dread it. I'm in the dread group. Even though logically we know that the taper is necessary for the body to recoup and repair and be ready for race day, what's going through our minds is, "I'm losing strength. I'm losing speed. It's been 3 weeks since I've done a long, hard run and my body has forgotten how. I'm not ready, I'm weak, I'm doomed..."