Saturday, March 28, 2009

Suffolk County Half Marathon Tomorrow!

First race of the season for me tomorrow and I'm totally nervous as hell! As I've now mentioned countless times, I'm coached now, so with that comes new expectations. With the past races I've done, triathlons, marathons, 5k's, 10k's, etc., I've always run out of sheer determination. I've done well, but never really had a specific plan going into any of them. It's always been more like, 'Well, I guess I'll run today' as a training philosophy.

Now that I've been coached for the last 5 or 6 months, dramatic increases in both fitness and confidence have occured. Most importantly, every day that I get out to train, there is a specific plan. There's a goal to reach for the day, and I feel more and more confident every time I reach it. Gladly, I now feel that I'm no longer just spinning my wheels. Coaching has been worth every penny that I've put into it, and thankfully I have a great coach that doesn't break my bank!

So with that, today I find myself not quite itching to get out the door to do a simple 15 minute workout. Ironic right? I can get up for a 2 and a half hour run, but a simple 15 minute jog with some pickups....it's like pulling teeth. I just want to race damnit! Ok, sorry, just had to get that out.

Ok, so that's where I'm at. As for the race tomorrow, I'm trying very hard not to put any expectations in place. Of course I expect it to go well, but I'm not going to hold myself to a specific time goal. I've run only one other stand alone half in my life, and paced a friend and finished around 1;30 super comfortably. Not to mention the fact that I weighed about 200 lbs at the time and had put in zero quality weeks of training. I'm now at about 175 and fitter than I've ever been. So I guess that is putting a time expectation in place isn't it? Ok, so anything under 1:30 and I'll be happy.

So that's it. I'm going to post my full report on the race tomorrow (as if anyone really cares because no one actually reads this blog!). I'll hopefully be happy and bloated with Thai Food!

Push 'till ya puke...Always!

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