Shoe/feet update

I saw Wayne the Magic Man yesterday and let me tell you that I feel excitement about this whole thing again! It had been gone for over a month at least and honestly, I was pretty much ready to throw in the towel, but I once again have hope that I can get through this! Wayne watched me walk and had me do other exercises and he said that since I don't have an injury and since I am having a different problem on different parts of my feet each time I try new shoes, the problem is not with my feet but with my shoes. I brought in the old Filas that I was going to get a new pair of and the Sauconys that I was going to return. He said he doesn't like Filas because they are made more for tennis than for running. He traced the Filas and the Sauconys and showed me that the Filas were about a centimeter narrower than the Sauconys and that the outside bones were hurting in the Filas because they were too narrow. The balls of my feet were hurting with the Sauconys and he said that could probably be remedied with the Fleet Feet inserts that I had in my Filas. So he put the Fleet Feet inserts in my Sauconys and they felt fine this morning when I ran, but they always do until I get to a longer run. I guess the real test will be Saturday. I ordered the inserts Lisa Davis told me about even though Wayne said they may or may not help. I also talked to Wayne about not having done a 20 or 22 miler and about having walked the last 7 of my 18 and feeling like I haven't done enough long distances and he said he would talk to Mark about me doing a longer run on Saturday, maybe 14, 16 or 18. So, Mark emailed me before Wayne talked to Mark and I told him the whole story and Mark said...

"As far as doing more this Saturday, I'm not sure about that. Yes, you walked the last seven miles. I walked my last 8 miles two years ago and got a medal. The biggest thing is do you think you are mentally tough enough to gut out an extra 8 or 10 miles from you longest run? I'm not sure that the extra miles will do anything more than boost your confidence but might add more fatigue on the back end. If you need the boost go for it. If you can psyche yourself to leave it all on the race course, I would do 10 miles and rest for the race. I've done two marathons with 16 miles being my longest run. It was hard and it was a mental battle but I did it!"

Mark is so incredibly awesome as you all already know!!!!! That is all I needed to hear! So I replied and said...

"Right now, my confidence is in as bad of shape as my feet are. But I know I'll be able to do it mentally on race day, as long as I'm physically prepared for it. If I have 2 good runs each of the next Saturdays, then that will boost my confidence tremendously. If you think that physically I have done enough, then I am fine with that and I will just do the last two Saturday runs as planned and not risk getting over tired. "

So that is my plan. I share all of this with you because I know of MANY of you out there that are in a similar situation as me. If we can maintain our current physical ability and boost our confidence up to where it needs to be, then we can do this. I know that is harder said than done for those of us dealing with "physical issues," but this is it. There is no more time left. It's do or die and this is what we've been shedding our blood, sweat and tears toward for these last eight months. This is the mental battle that will stop us like a brick wall or keep us moving forward. To anyone who is having issues, I say do what you can for the next two weeks and then run like hell come marathon day! I really do think that our "pain" will be different somehow on that day! See you all Saturday you awesome marathoners you!