Chpater 2 page 440 - TR 166 & 2 wake ups

Huge apology for being absent from the blogosphere all week.  I've been tapering and just not a lot has been going on in the Wells L world (shocker I know- ha!).  As you are all probably aware, Saturday (yes this one coming up - eek, only 2 wake ups) is the Fort 4 Fitness Half Marathon.  It's my "big" race.  It was my first half last year and will be my 5th half on Saturday.  It's the race that I have set as my goal race and am hoping I can drop 2:16 from my half time and get a sub 3.  I feel pretty confident about it given the various PR smackdowns I had this summer, but as you know, nothing is ever given - it's earned.  I can't take anything for granted so . . . we'll see.  Everything is coming together and you can't really ask for more than that.  The forecast is for cool weather with a slight chance of rain (that might be a fun distraction . . . think I can hope for it to start at mile 10 when I'm usually hating life?  probably asking too much!).

This week I've spent some time doing mental prep and laying out a strategy for the route, here's what I'm going to do:
1.  Fuel before the race, 2 bloks at mile 3, 2 bloks at mile 6, 1 gu at mile 9, 2 blocks at mile 11
2.  Use a 2:30 & 1:30 interval at least until mile 11 - then . . . I might change it up to 3:1 if I have enough in the tank
3.  Drink early and often
4.  I'm not allowing myself to walk through any intervals until at least mile 5 and then I am allowing myself to walk through no more than 5 intervals after mile 5 (not that I'll need to walk through 5 intervals - but if I push too fast or it gets hard, it's a nice mental trick and will help me to evaluate the level of fatigue I'm experiencing "am I really tired enough to need to burn up one of my allowing walks????"
5.  I'm going to be having the pacing for both a 2:55 (crazy I know) and 3:00 on my arm - hope that Lutheran Hospital provides temp pacing tats again this year (fingers crossed).
6.   I've arrived at the decision and am focusing on having confidence in it and hoping for the best.  I have decided to ditch my usual "social" attitude for solitude with music.  I'm not running this race with anyone (I have other friends in the race and I have some spectator friends going to be around, but none immediately with me) so I'm going to implement the OPPOSITE strategy that I used in Chicago last month.  Chicago I used BIG BOLD and LOUD - I was the social butterfly during the race and interacted with everyone.  I had a blast.  That much spirit takes a lot of energy.  It's how I race - it's what I love to do so that's why the decision to not do it in Saturday's race has been such a challenge for me.  Saturday, I plan on blasting the jamz from my ipod which makes me feel separated from everything else that is going on around me.  It's not ideal, but with the smaller race, some remote areas of the course, fewer spectators and a BUNCH of rookies who aren't likely to "get" the BIG BOLD and LOUD - after much consideration, I think an opposite approach might be my best strategy for this race.

SO . .. if you are going to be along the route to cheer me on - wave your arms like a crazy person, jump out and tackle me, scream at the top of your lungs so that I can get out of "my zone" and see you. . . . and know I'm eternally grateful you are there!!!!!!  I don't have my outfit finalized yet - help . . . what should I wear???

I'm ready, but I'm still scared.  I've put all of my PR eggs into this one race basket and I'm hoping I don't drop the basket and crush the eggs.  "C" is feeling extremely confident - thanks to all of you who gave her words of encouragement last week!!

Last night was our last half marathon class.  We did a "quick" 2 laps after class (I say quick because it was a lot faster than I typically go, but it didn't kill me) and with that . . . .ALL OF OUR TRAINING FOR THIS HALF MARATHON TRAINING CYCLE IS D.O.N.E!  Tomorrow will be a fun training cycle recap by the numbers.

In the meantime, please take a moment to send up a good thought about these people who are doing one of the 3 races (4 miler, 10K, half mary) at Saturday's Fort 4 Fitness race - not an inclusive list so I apologize to everyone that I miss:
-Kimberly @ Healthy Strides (doing the 4 miler)
-Marcia  my Sweaty BFF & a Spring Into Training grad (doing the 4 miler)
-Bri my awesome friend & Spring Into Training grad (doing the 4 miler)
-Larry a Spring Into Training grad and co-worker (doing the 4 miler)
-Stacey who is "my people" and Spring Into Training grad (doing the 10K)
-April @ Another Day in the Life of April (doing the half)
-Tia (Aprils' training partner) (doing the half)
-Chris (my training partner) (doing the half)
-Kristin a Spring Into Training grad (doing the half)
-Jenn @ Running 4 my life (doing the half)
-Val who did my very first race with me (doing the half)
-moi (doing the half)

GOOD LUCK TO EVERYONE DOING A RACE THIS WEEKEND!!!!  Stay tuned for a weekend full of posts!