After having 3 beautiful, cool days at the beginning of the week, we are back to low 70s and humidity 80+. Not that bad compared to a lot of places in the country, but not ideal race weather (at least for me)*.
I'm going to head out for 4 with some strides just to loosen everything up this morning and then try to calm down and enjoy the day (especially this evening) before the race. After work my coworker/fellow blogger Kerri and I are going to the expo to pick up our stuff and then going to a Madison blogger/runner meetup at Portabella organized by the fabulous- and always colorful- Jamie of Running Diva Mom. Which reminds me... I need to put a sticky note on the door so I don't forget to bring my camera.
So for race goals... um... I dunno. I wish I felt more pumped up about the race. I was looking back at my training log from July-Sept of 2008 when I set my half marathon PR, and I was running all my intervals much slower than I am now... but I was doing my easy and long runs faster. Not sure what that means. Plus that PR was set on a beautiful cool day on a really flat course. This one will be neither. So I guess my goal is to not go out too fast and to enjoy the run whatever happens.
I think the thing that I fear is that if I don't at least hit somewhere close to 1:50 then I need to give up on a 3:50 goal pace for the marathon. A 1:49 is the "equivalent" to a 3:50 according to the McMillan pace calculator site, with only 5 or 6 weeks to go before the marathon I better be darn close to race shape. So that's my fear. Possibly irrational, but I'm laying it out there.
Okay. Time to turn off the fretting and focus on having a good run this morning, a productive day at work (where I don't spend an unreasonable amount of time perusing the Portablella menu), a fun time this evening, getting good sleep, and enjoying my Tour de Madison tomorrow.
*For those of you who are jealous, be thankful that you don't have this
coming your way anytime soon.
