It's Go Time

In the final stages of preparation for the Champoeg half-marathon on Saturday. I feel pretty good at this point. I've had to good Saturday runs of 10.5 and 11 miles, a couple of consistent weeks running 5, 5, and 3-5 on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, and then had a good 6 mile run on Saturday as I started to taper my miles a bit. This week I ran 4 on Tuesday and had planned to run 2 yesterday, but had to call a bit of an audible. I went up to the high school to run on the soft, spongy track only to find that the marching band and cheerleading squads had taken over the entire stadium, closing the track. More than a bit miffed, I did what anyone (I think) would do less than 72 hours before a race: I said screw it, I'm going to go find the biggest hills I can find and run them. And so I did (it wasn't hard to find them as the high school is essentially build at the highest point in all of West Salem).

So 3 miles up the hills it was. And it felt good. I pushed myself pretty hard, finished up back where I parked and knew I was ready to go for Saturday. In a related story, I was rewarded with a shin splint in my right leg this morning. Shouldn't be any problem though.

My diet the last couple of days has been a steady diet of banana/strawberry/blackberry frozen smoothies, water, bananas and pasta. Eating lots of carbs today and then will eat a normal amount tomorrow.

Today's prep will consist only of some good stretching. Tomorrow I'll probably walk or lightly jog a mile or so and follow it up with some more stretching.

The goals for Saturday:

Race of my life goal: 1:44:48 (8:00/mile)
Realistic goal: 1:48:05 (8:15/mile--my pace in all of my training runs)
Worst case scenario goal: 1:50:00 (8:24/mile)

The forcast calls for 50% chance of rain at racetime. At least it won't be t0o hot.

It's go time.