Ten days until the Beach to Beacon. And yes, that realization this morning sent me into a heart-racing panic. Or maybe it was the four cups of coffee. Either way, I can admit I'm already nervous.

Here's where you say, "You can do it" and I say something self-deprecating like, "I'll probably be waving to the finish line from the back of an ambulance," or "I just hope I don't die."

Truth is, I know I can finish without emergency assistance and without a six pack dangling from a stick in front of me - just out of reach [pause here to give readers time to visualize].

I'll surely have to walk some of it. I've made great progress since April but I'm nowhere near running 6.whatever miles non-stop. And I'm cool with that.

My fear, however, is an out-of-nowhere debilitating cramp or nausea or fatigue that compels me to walk all of it, depressingly slow, training group long gone, and me, disappointed, crossing the line while the sponsors are folding up their tents. Optimistic, isn't it?

There are 5 good group runs to go - between the Reach the Beacon training and the Hannaford Tuesday runs - and these will help dictate my mood going into the 10K. No more Monster, no more Turbo (it's true) just me and the H20 (and some Clif bars and some Gatorade and some bagels and apples and, oh, gum. Gum helps keep my mouth from drying out and giving me that MUST HAVE WATER feeling).

I'm very confident the race will go well. At least, it should go fairly smoothly. It won't be awful anyway. The likelihood is that I'll cross the finish line of my own volition. Just in case things go sour, though, I'd like to be buried with my couch.