Track and Field Blogs - Nick Arciniaga

Only one month to go til the big day. My emotions are spinning around crazily, one moment I’m excited, then nervous, then eager, then exhausted, then about 10 other random feelings. I can’t wait until race day, I want to get it over with, I have been putting a lot of pressure on myself which is making this a Do or Die type race. The good news is that my training has been going great, I have had consistent high mileage for the past 6 weeks, with 2 more until I finally cut back.

Needless to say I am going to be ready for the race, my only worry now is if I have over trained. That’s always a big question mark as a Hanson’s athlete. Being a high mileage program, and focusing on the marathon, it can be pretty easy to get carried away on the day-to-day training and intensity of the runs. Almost everyone on the team has a Type A personality when it comes to training. We all want to be the best, be the top dog. Right now Brian still has those honors, but the rest of us know what it takes to become as good and maybe one day better that him. The answer for us is to work harder.

But this hard work that we puts ourselves through multiple times a day everyday of the year can be dangerous, can lean to small subtle injuries, burnout, stress fractures, or numerous other circumstances that all athletes are wary of, but are sometimes random and unpredictable. The best we can do is hope that our training over the past however many years we have been running has prepared us for the work that we are putting in right now.

It would seem that right now I have prepared for the race perfectly, but the next couple weeks are going to be the most crucial part of my training. I’ve been walking a fine line between perfect training and overtraining. And one thing that I have to continue to do is run smart, listen to my body, and take care of every nutritional need that I require. As we all know the training is not everything in preparation; sleep, diet, stretching, and just nice relaxation are unbelievable helpful and probably what I look forward to the most.

Now, its time to get back to training. In particular, its time for a nap!