Let's Pretend This Has Been Happening All Along

I haven't blogged in ages, but instead of trying to catch up or make lame excuses, I'm just going to reference this book made of Awesome by Jenny Lawson (aka The Bloggess) and move on. You need to read her (as long as you're not at work and won't be offended by prevalent use of the f-word. And aren't drinking something you don't want to come out your nose. Seriously. Don't blame me if that Margarita stings on the way out. Did you check out her blog yet?  I doubt it because if you did you probably didn't bother to come back here.  Or if you did, it's a month later and you suddenly remembered who you have to thank for exposing you to Jenny's wacky, thinky, dark humor. Either way, I hope you ordered her book. And another margarita.).

So I finally met my new primary care physician (to whom I was assigned when my previous one left the practice like, I dunno...a year ago??) and had a long-overdue physical. [Wow, you are so clicking on the Bloggess' link again aren't you? Totally don't blame you.]  my new doctor is nice, seemed attentive, and was delighted to have an easy patient (Smoker? No. Diabetes? No. Hallucinations involving giant rabbits? No. And so on...).  She's not a runner so she didn't have much to say for or against the marathon I'm supposed to be training for [more on that later].  I did mention that I was pretty sure my iron was low again so she sent me to the lab and said she might call in a couple days if anything showed up.
I think I was first on the call list the next morning.
I imagine the answering machine message was something to the effect of
"Your iron is extremely low.  Like, REALLY low.  Like, maybe you're not answering the phone because you fainted.  So...start popping iron pills like candy,OK?  Now please.  Or as soon as you're done fainting.  Whichever's easier.  Maybe snack on an iron bar or two between meals? Tell us how that goes." 
I'm sure it was just like that.

So I'm back on iron pills 3 times a day (with meals, 'cause I've learned the hard way that taking them on an empty stomach with an OJ chaser--as recommended by the medical professionals/lab nerds who never have to follow their own advice--is really not worthwhile since it induces massive stomach pains) and hoping this will magically make me live up to my Captain Underpants nickname:

Using the first letter of your first name:
N = "Zippy" 

[Do I have to tell them that our last name is "Bananafanny"? No?  Oh good. Thanks.]

Because I need some zip in order to finish 26.2 miles in under 6 hours.  See, since I've been blogging about this all summer (see title of this post), you know that Alan and I are planning to run the Green Mountain Marathon in October.  Yeah, I still can't believe I might actually do this.  Then again, since some of my training runs have been about as substantial as my summer blog posts, I might not.

Here's the thing:  I'm behind on my training runs--the longest I've managed is 15 miles--and I've done pathetically little cross-training.  Alan's behind too but I'm confident he'll do fine.  So we've been waffling a bit and hadn't actually registered until last night when Alan looked online and determined that registration is capped at 700 and they were at 686.  Yikes! Time to commit!  There's a Full marathon, and a Half, and they allow you to switch from one to the other up until about a week out (for a fee).  This has been my safety net all along; I knew I could drop down to the half.  But then we did the math and I ended up registering for the half with the option to bump up if I feel I can handle it.  I don't mind spending more to do the real deal, but it would just add insult to injury to pay extra to wimp out. I haven't given up yet, but I really need to stay on target for the next five weeks.
That didn't come out right.  I meant to say

ONLY FIVE WEEKS!

Holy bananafannies! So here's the plan:

MDI Half Marathon next Saturday [remember when THAT was a huge big deal? The thing is, it won't be as easy as it should be at this late stage...]
18 and 20 mile runs the following two weekends (simple, right?)
Eat my Wheaties.

I also need to keep my job and keep on top of all the kids' extra-curriculars and keep taking my iron pills and keep running my lines for the play I'm in later this month....

Oh yeah: and keep blogging.  Which shouldn't be hard 'cause I've been doing that all along, of course.