It’s the night before the Maine Marathon. My third marathon.

And I ran my first marathon a year ago this weekend.

That’s a huge accomplishment and I’m proud. Two years ago I was running the couch to 5k and it was a challenge to run for 10 minutes straight. Tomorrow I’ll run for 5 hours.

Tomorrow is also the first of two marathons this fall I’ll be running, so I have this weird ‘it’s a race but it’s not a race’ feeling about tomorrow.

Everything has come together perfectly … except maybe the weather, but there isn’t anything I can do about that. I did every single run and even some extra in my training. I had a 5K PR in this cycle. I didn’t have any injuries, not even any niggles.

All signs point to tomorrow being a good day. No worries.

I’m still nervous. That’s normal. My last marathon wasn’t a really happy experience, but my first marathon was, and that’s the course I’m running. So I am trying to focus on that.

I know that if I hold back and take it easy, I will have a happy race.

My first goal: To beat my PR of 4:54:55. I feel strongly that I can; I’ve had some strong long runs this training cycle. But I won’t be devastated if I don’t. I will tell myself this as I force myself to run at an 11-minute pace for the first half.

My second goal: To beat 4:35. This would be running at a 10:30 pace, which pace calculators tell me I can do based on my 5K and half marathon times … yet this goal alluded me the last marathon around.

Maybe its bad luck to write down what I want to do, but … I’m doing it. You can hold me to it, Internets!

My most important goal is to come off tomorrow NOT FEELING DESTROYED. I can’t leave it all on the course because I can’t spend the next two weeks recovering. So I always have that excuse to hedge me. I felt pretty good in the few days after the Sugarloaf Marathon, but after the Maine Marathon last year I remember missing the aerobic capacity I used to have in the weeks that followed. I’ll need that to finish MDI on Oct. 14.

I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow. Wish me luck!