The End of the Penultimate week before Marathon

It's the end of the penultimate week before the Dublin City Marathon, on Bank Holiday Monday, 26 October, 2009.
The question I keep asking myself is " am I ready for the big day?". Part of me tells me I am and another part says no.

I went through a grueling 5 Miler, 10 Miler and lastly the Half marathon races on my preparation journey towards the Dublin marathon. Each of these races were debuts. I performed reasonably well for a novice, although I will hasten to point out that my completion times are nowhere near the accomplished runners' times. Each race presented it's own unique challenges and in some cases i would describe it as a rude awakening! I was experimenting with different methods of training. Mostly I would trawl through the web to see how different people approached marathons.
I tried these and my own self styled methods with varying degrees of success. Most of these techniques are chronicled in some of my previous blogs that you can find here.
From the outset I set myself to complete the marathon under the so called 4 hour cut-off. Judging by my training and my race times I seem to be on track to achieving my ultimate goal on my debut marathon. For these reasons I feel I am ready for the ultimate price. (I don't mean winning the marathon of course, you better be kidding)

On the other hand, given that this will be my debut 42km run, I am entering into the uncharted territories. I have never run 42km before. The fact that I have run 33km during my training does not mean I can complete a 42km run. In-fact on both occasions when I completed above 30km I felt that I was beginning to hit the proverbial "Wall" from around around 30k mark.
If I maintain my form I should at least be able to go up to 30 km. Everything being equal it seems the ultimate challenge is going to be the attempt to complete the last 12 km! I can only prepare as best as I can and hope for the best.
The other potential spoiler is injury or unexpected illness in the coming final week. Currently I have a nagging right knee pain which I am trying my best to ignore. Probably experts would have advised me to rest for 3 weeks or so and allow for recovery. This would have meant either missing the Half Marathon or the big one. Either way I was not/ am not prepared to miss any race. Having come this far and having been on it for a year I was not prepared to quit.
I feel pain in my knee during the first km or so of running and it disappears only to resurface after completion of my run. The pain only comes when I move my right leg or if I take a step. Physios please make a quick diagnosis but don't tell me. Only tell me after the marathon.
I am hoping that this pain will not come any other time during the race, because I would hate to quit.
The other fear is of an unexpected illness. As I go into the final week of preparation I note with slight fear that my 2 daughters are currently recovering from colds. I seem to have survived but you never know.

So, this is why I think I am both ready and not ready for the marathon. We will see on the day.
I will blog about my game plan. Maybe I will call that blog "The final word"