GO! St.Louis Marathon preparation

About 2 months ago, I decided I needed to put a race on the calendar.  It would, after all, be a shame to let all my hard-earned trail running fitness get spoiled by too much time off.  Originally, I wanted to join my buddy, John Cash, at the McNaughton Park 50 mile trail run.  After a lot internal debate, though, I figured I wouldn't be able to train well for the distance once Miles entered the picture, so I rethought my next event.  I have never done a stand-alone marathon, and I needed to find something that would be less time-consuming than training for a 50 miler.  Enter the GO! St. Louis Marathon (April 11th, 2010).
I signed up and immediately sought the guidance of my old tri coach, Elizabeth Fedofsky Waterstraat.  I plead my case, and asked if she would help me cross the finish line in 3:10:59 or less.  It would be a stretch goal.  That time may sound random, but it is the time a guy my age is required to run in order to qualify for the Boston Marathon.  That translates to an average pace of 7:17 minutes/mile.  No small task, so you can understand why I wanted Coach ELF in my corner.
Training has gone well up to this point, which is all that really counts.  I'm officially in taper mode.  The hard work has already been done.  Money in the bank, if you will.  A few of the challenging workouts included distances of 18, 20, and 22 miles. Most of those ended with me chugging chocolate milk, and then getting into a bathtub filled with ice.  It's very painful at the time, but it makes the next days much more enjoyable.
Tomorrow is the last "long" run of any consequence.  A mere 12 miles (plus a handful of relatively short, snappy runs) stands between me starting line.
What I hope, is that the actual event will be a celebration of all the hard work.  Like the Postal Service, neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow, stopped me from getting the work done.  I also hope it will result in my earning the opportunity to choose whether or not I'd like to run Boston.  This is one of those things it might be wise to check off the proverbial Bucket List sooner rather than later.  But I'm getting ahead of myself.  The marathon course is not a particularly easy one by all accounts, and it won't just roll over and give up the 3:10:59 without fighting back.
As an aside, I'm really proud of my TESL volleyball girls to whom I am assistant coach.  When the head coach (who is also running the marathon) suggested that the girls all come out to support us, they were really excited.  So we took it one step further, and got them signed up to run an aid station on the course. I think having their support out there at the 14 mile mark will give us a huge boost.  Plus, it should be a great experience for the team to donate some of their free time to other peoples' athletic endeavors.  So many people will be appreciative of their help.  And who knows, it might even be inspirational to a few of the girls!
So it's out there now. The goal has been established.  There's no going back.