Wednesday, October 10, 2012

The Final Countdown...

Today is my final day of work before the big race weekend begins. I thought I'd take a moment to reflect on my preparations for the Munich Half Marathon.

I do not feel prepared. I had 2 long runs go horribly wrong. What's interesting about that is it's an identical experience to the training I did for my first half marathon... right down to the 12-miler becoming a 7-miler. As I'm becoming a bit superstitious, I'm going to see that as a good omen for my weekend. But I haven't been running as much as I did during my last training cycle; I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. I've done a lot of yoga & strength training, but I haven't logged a lot of running miles. Or at least it doesn't feel like I have. Either way, I'm not feeling my strongest & fittest going into this race.

Where does that leave me? It leaves me wanting to hit 2:15:00, but understanding it's probaby not realistic. It leave me understanding that no matter what, I'll still have a PR & will finish, so I can live with whatever the finishing time turns out to be.

In the last couple of days before a race, I think it's common to engage in self-doubt & question whether or not you're prepared for the challenge you're about to face. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, as long as you don't wallow & drown in it. And if it helps, go burn out a mile to shake out the doubts. Go take a nice walk with your dog... take a yoga class & focus on being limber & stretchy... read a book... watch your favorite TV show... do anything you can to keep yourself from being overwhelmed by self-doubt.

My plans for the next 2 days: a fitness assessment, 2 yoga classes, a quick 2-3 mile shake out run, packing my bag, & a nice Penny-walk. All relaxing with no stress to freak me out. I even made a nice treat to eat over the next few days: Black Bean Pumpkin Chili. It's all about relaxing & remembering that "I've freaking got this."

2 comments:

  1. I can relate on the whole not training enough thing. I have a 5k,10k, and half next weekend and I really haven't been running like I should. Just go out there and try to have fun. That's what I'm going to do. If you PR AWESOME but if not, I hope you can look back and say that it was a cool race :)

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    1. First, thanks for stopping by! Love your blog. :D

      I figure at my current PR of 2:30:19, I'll definitely PR...my question now is "By how much?" I think I'm going to focus on coming in under my original time & have fun from there. I love racing, but I often get carried away in the crucial first miles & come out way too fast. My goal is to avoid that on Sunday.

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