Thoughts before the ATB

Eighty seven days ago I decided to sign up for the Around the Bay 30K Race, a legendary road race that is "Older than Boston" (which is the slogan on the technical t-shirt in the goodies bag). It's about 6 hours before I take my place among more than 7,000 people who have trained through the winter. Which is kind of a funny thing to say because as far as training went in the last 87 days, it was a really poor effort on my part overall. I have run no more than 20K in preparation for this race. I have no doubt this is going to hurt me even as I plan to take it easy. Every time someone asks me what my goal time is for any race, the answer has always been "to complete." That's not changing today.