We bought cow bells for our cheering squad!

I finally got my hands on some cow bells. Boy are they hard to find! Some people suggested for me to check out music stores but I was looking for them at toy stores. Luckily, I found one at a local toy store in Vancouver called the Toy Box and Toy Jungle. They put their last cow bell on hold for me and this past weekend, we went to pick it up! It was $5.99 and then we got 25% off since it was during their annual anniversary sale. Score! They also threw in a toy blue one that doesn't make as much noise. I'm so excited about them!!! Now Tristan and my parents can make noise when they see us and for all the other runners in the race :)

We are all pretty much set now. Cow bells have been acquired. Training is pretty much over. Carbo-loading and operation "eat well" is in progress. Next weekend we head over to Victoria to the expo to get our numbers and Sunday morning we race.

Yesterday we ran a 14km route that included two hills. It was a great route because we barely trained on hills this summer and we really needed to. This was our second hill run. The run was easy, thank goodness. It is only 1/3 of the marathon we have to run next weekend. It better be easy, right?! :)

This is our resting week. Today we take a break from running. Tomorrow we do a 11km run. We break again the next day. Then we go on our last run, just 8km, which will fall on the Thursday after work. That's it! In the meantime, we are eating well and carbo-loading all week. It takes the body 2-3 full days to carbo-load without any exercise. Our race is Sunday morning.

Overall I'm feeling pretty good. If I'm not ready now, it's too late. The biggest advantage I can give myself now is to eat properly, carbo-load, take care of myself and rest this week. I was close to becoming sick with the common cold late last week. I had an increasing big headache, sore throat, and was very tired for a few days. Thanks to daily prevention cold-fx, I'm feeling more myself again :) I initially thought maybe I should go on a diet this week and try to lose a couple of pounds but now that I think about it, I should keep everything constant. It's just too late in the game for any changes! Although running a couple of pounds lighter could really help me :) But it could also present new problems and I already tested everything out that works so, yeah bad idea.

The one thing I am a bit worried about is my left foot. The spasm at the bottom has not gone away. It has been there for over a month now. It starts to hurt after about 20 minutes of running now. Sometimes right after starting. It definitely worries me but I can't do anything about it right now. It's unfortunate I will be taking this 'injury' into the race with me. I know it's going to be a big source of pain for me during the race. After the race, I plan to stop running for at least one week to see if it goes away. If it doesn't, I'll go see my doctor. That's the plan anyway.