It's Almost Race Day!

Mostly I’ve been taking it easy since Sunday. I ran five miles on Monday and an easy double on Tuesday (four miles in the a.m. and five in the p.m.). On Wednesday, I ran seven miles, including two miles at half marathon pace. I actually ran a bit slower than goal pace for the second mile. I ran at lunch and ended up running the faster miles in an area where I don’t normally run. By the way, a mile sure seems longer when there are no familiar landmarks. Where I usually run I can estimate fairly accurately where the next mile mark will be, but yesterday I had to just run until I heard the beep. I could have just looked down at my Garmin, but I’m trying to learn the pace by feel, so I only check the pace every half mile. Anyway, I checked the pace when I knew I had run more than a half a mile, and I was running at 6:16 pace (goal pace is 6:29). I ended up adjusting my pace too much. I finished the first mile at 6:27, but had slowed to 6:34 for the second mile. I’ll finish my week with five easy miles today, no running on Friday, and a very easy 2 miles on Saturday.

My legs have felt heavy since yesterday, but that’s pretty normal for me the week before a race. Yesterday, I was fine after a short warm-up. I’m confident that I’ll be ready to race on Sunday.