Last run

Well, this is it. I went for a ridiculously short 20 minute run this morning. It was 34 degrees outside. Brrrr! 24 hours I will have completed 13.1 miles. I appreciate all of the support from friends and family these past few days/weeks/months. I will post pictures here after the race. If you are awake and lucid at 7am EST tomorrow you can cheer for me.

Snow!

It is freaking cold out there. There were actually teensy tiny snowflakes falling for a few minutes a little while ago. What the hell! And it's windy, too. I seriously hope the weather improves between now and Sunday. The forecast is for a high of 47 on Sunday. That's the high, folks! Egads. I suppose it really doesn't matter. I'm running no matter what. It would just be nice not to have to stand shivering at the start line for 30+ minutes beforehand. If the wind goes away then the temps will probably be tolerable. I picked up my bib today. Can't wait to be wearing it Sunday morning. While most of you are still sleeping.

Things I have learned (Part 2)

More things I have learned:

1. Wet leaves are slippery.
2. Humidity can be a good thing.
3. No matter how cold it gets, I really don't need gloves after a couple of miles.
4. I may not be considered a "slow" runner anymore.

Fidgeting

Definitely feeling anxious. For the second time now I want to go for a run even though it's a rest day. I seem to have a lot of nervous energy these days. It would be great if I could save it all up and then tap into it on Sunday. I tried to look at the profile of the course. They don't have one posted on the race website but I made a crude one using the pedometer function on Google maps. There appears to be a good-sized hill from mile 7 to mile 8. That will be difficult as mile 8 tends to be the crux for me. Luckily, after that it appears to be pretty flat. I need to work on some visual imagery or mantras to get me through the rough spots.

My new PR

I ran a 9:06 mile today. Technically a new PR but since it was only for ~3.5 miles I don't know if it really counts. I wanted to see what I could do if I really focused but I also didn't want to be foolish about it so close to race day. I probably won't push it anymore, just to be safe. But after the race (and a recovery week or so) I think I'll have to play around with some speed work and see what happens. It still feels really weird to be running such short distances when I've got 13.1 miles to run on Sunday. Today I tried convincing myself that the speed made up for it a bit but I wasn't buying it. I guess we'll just have to see.

Grrrr

I do not run well first thing in the morning. My average pace over the 5 miles this morning was OK but the standard deviation was horrible. I was all over the place. My legs are just not awake that early in the morning. This doesn't instill me with confidence for next Sunday. Today was my last "long" run (I don't think 5 miles can be considered long anymore) and I really wanted to feel better about it. I started thinking that perhaps my pedometer wasn't working properly but since this same pedometer recorded my PR two days ago it's just too sad to consider the possibility that it was wrong. Besides, it's a poor runner that blames her gadgets, right? I can't believe the race is only 7 days away.

Picking up speed

9:19. That blows the doors off of anything I've done in the past. Yeah, I've run faster than that for very short intervals of time but this was over 4 miles at that pace. Of course, there's no way I can keep up that pace for 13.1 miles but it's nice to know that I can do it for the short runs. I'll be interested to see what I can pull off on my next short run. It was 39 degrees out there, too. I'm having a hard time imagining it as "warm" as 45 degrees at 7am next Sunday when it's been in the 30's at that time of morning this week. I think I need to find some gloves.