Last week I was ready to throw in the towel after a dismal first half of marathon training due to weather and kidney stone issues. My 17 mile long run just didn’t happen and it so happened to be the week that I told myself to call it quits if it wasn’t going to happen.

For better or worse a few people talked me back from the edge of the cliff on Sunday and told me to give it another shot. But in order for that to happen I needed to focus and not skip any workouts. I agreed.

So far this week I have managed to do every training run, albeit on the treadmill. I have come to expect that is going to happen more often than not for a bunch of my runs during the week. I just have to suck it up.

This week is my 18 mile long run and yes, I am freaking out about it. It’s still going to be on the cold side and coordinating a place to leave my coat and some warm clothes to change into after are tricky. But I have to do this run. No questions.

The kidney is still an issue. Some days it hurts because it is passing the stone that blasted to bits and other days it’s just tender and sore. At this point I am almost convinced that I’m going to have this kind of discomfort for the rest of my life. Yes, this is how long this has been going on and yes, I know the pain will go away. But in order for me to start getting on with things I’m having to work with the mentality that I will always have this and need to learn how to manage and deal with it. No time like an 18 mile long run to do that.

On the whole, I am not excited for this marathon. I’m hoping it will happen soon but right now this just feels like a chore that I have to get through. Not even seeing the finishers medal got me excited. Perhaps a week or two of solid training will help with that.

I’ve also decided to rethink my goals for this one. Right now I’m convinced I am going to do worse than New York City which I do not want to do. Right now I’ll be happy with a one second PR.

Perhaps more importantly than all that is that I have been reminded to just focus on what I’m running at any given moment. I need to focus on just the mile I am currently running and not the 15 ahead of me. This of course is easier said than done but it helped with my eight mile run yesterday and I know I’ll try really hard to keep doing that for this weekend’s 18 mile long run.

It’s do or die time or maybe both.