Name: Kristy Gray

Age: 32

Job: Features editor

Progress so far: I've made it to 14 miles. While clearly not long enough, it's what I've been able to squeeze in. When I was to run 18 miles, I only made it four before my knee told me I better stop, NOW, if I wanted to even walk again. I've since latched on to my knee brace and have been working on shorter runs to rest it while, hopefully, keeping my lungs in some sort of running shape.

What I've learned: Having a solid race strategy is a must.

The Boy Scout motto is "always be prepared." If that doesn't work out, my younger sister has a motto that might actually help me get through Sunday's marathon: "Fake it until you make it."

Patsy mastered the skill when she was only a fifth- or sixth-grader at Paintbrush Elementary in Gillette.

It was in gym class during the dreaded year-end fitness test. She and her classmates were to be timed as they ran three full laps around the ginormous playground.

Like me, Patsy was not - and never has been - a runner. She was dead last as she rounded the last lap.

In front of her, every one of her classmates crossed the finish line and gathered there to watch the lone girl puffing through the last dozen yards.

Oh the humiliation! Patsy simply couldn't bear it: The patronizing encouragement from kids who were not last. The mantras about how it's good just to finish. The giggles and teases, from supposed friends, that would certainly come for the next several days.

Patsy COULDN'T finish last. She just couldn't.

So she didn't.

With no real plan, just gut instinct, Patsy tripped just feet from the finish. She tripped theatrically, with arms and legs flailing. When her appendages finally fell still, she closed her eyes and lay there. And lay there.

Silence fell over the playground. Perhaps the wind whistled through the tunnel slide and a tumble weed blew past an empty swing set.

Then: "Patsy! Are you OK?"

Anyone else might have ended it right then. Opened his eyes, cracked a joke about the fall and just lived with the teasing.

Not Patsy. The master did not move and did not open her eyes.

By the time her classmates gathered over her limp body, yelling her name and poking her with their feet, Patsy had passed the point of no return. She was committed.

Even when her gym teacher gently shook her shoulders, her eyes stayed closed. As he scooped her up in his arms and carried her to the nurse's office, her eyes stayed closed. As she let her arms and feet bounce limply in her teacher's arms, her eyelids did not flutter.

Did the teacher know she was faking? That's not the point. The point of this story, and its lesson, is Patsy's commitment, if not to her fitness test, then at least to her resolve not to finish last - even if it meant not finishing at all.

That commitment deserves some credit, doesn't it?

So if my weeks of running - and later weeks of slacking and convincing myself that running on a bum knee would only make it worse - aren't enough to get me through Sunday's 26.2 miles, at least I have a back-up plan. If not prepared in body, at least I'll be prepared in trickery.

For that, I thank you, Patsy. I can only hope my commitment to my fall (if, heaven forbid, it comes to that) will be as steadfast as yours. Now, if only I could commit to the actual running with such resolve.

Please, someone help me …