They say a picture is worth a thousand words ? and maybe you could add that one marathon is worth a thousand miles of preparation.Ellen Goldberg of Nahant is well-versed in both photography and marathon running. She has completed six marathons and is on track for a seventh on Patriots’ Day, when she will run the 116th Boston Marathon.Marathon training is not the only extracurricular activity for Goldberg, a wife and mother of two whose day job is managing operations for a Boston nonprofit. She is also a part-time freelance photographer. Occasionally, her interests converge a bit on training runs.”There are some shots, compositions that occur to you when running,” she said. “Not necessarily on the beach, but early in the morning in Nahant, the sprinklers over the lawn on the golf course have interesting arcs. It would be a very nice picture to take when I’m not running.”She will be busy running from Hopkinton to Boston on Monday. And while she will run the Marathon for the third straight year, she is taking nothing for granted.”I’m nervous before every race,” she said. “This is no different. I’m on edge. I’m unnerved. I think most people who do marathons, races, get nervous before races. I know I do.”When asked whether having completed Boston twice before gives her any confidence, she said, “No. Absolutely none. Absolutely not. I just do not take it for granted. Every time you get to the starting line, it’s a new race. It depends on you out there.”Yet it does sound like Goldberg has prepared quite well for this 26.2-mile trek. She follows an 18-week training regimen.”I do a lot on the treadmill,” Goldberg said. “I’ll do two weeks heavy training and a cutback week to give my body a break. The next two weeks, I’ll push up a little bit (with) the mileage and then back. There will be 4-5 days of running – shorter runs, midsize, and long on Sunday.”She will also do “several laps around Nahant or Nahant through Lynn and Swampscott into Marblehead and back, especially along the water,” she said. “It’s a nice place to run. It’s a nice, cool ocean breeze and you don’t get the heat of the city.”Her training includes a nutritional aspect.”For the most part, during my training, I try to eat healthily,” she said. “The past couple weeks, I started to increase my training. I don’t have to watch so much what I eat.” However, she said, “The week before the Marathon, I start to focus on balancing carbohydrates with proteins with liquids.”She is planning on going to the starting line dressed for a hot day.”As little and as light as I can get away with,” she said, adding that her outfit could consist of a singlet, a wicking T-shirt or running shorts.One certainty is the Saucony Grid Stabil shoes she will wear.”When I tried to shift away, I got injured,” she said.She will wear socks, which she gets from Road Runner Sports (“midcalf, very thin,” she said).During the race, she is looking to take a Gatorade break “at almost all the stops,” she said. “At Mile 20, I get sick of Gatorade.”Despite these frequent stops, she plans on limiting her Gatorade intake to “just a couple of ounces,” she said, and added that she usually eats a Power Bar “partway through” and also likes Target-brand fruit snacks.What might help motivate her further is the knowledge that she has met her fundraising goals. As of Wednesday morning, she has raised $6,038 for the Massachusetts Association for the Blind and Visually Impaired (MAB). This will be her third Marathon running for MAB, and her 3-year total for the charity is over $15,000.”It is a very good cause,” she said.Rich Tenorio can be reached at [email protected].