Running update

Apparently I've used this as a blog entry title before. Oh well. The half marathon is 12 days away, so I thought an update was in order. I'm pretty freaked out about it, to be perfectly honest. After our 11 mile run we decided it was too hot here to do another long run before the race, but we really needed to do another long run. We had the genius idea of driving 90 minutes north where it's usually significantly cooler to do a 12 mile run. We knew the altitude might be an issue, but honestly I thought the cooler temperature would counteract the thinner air. As in, yes it would be slightly harder to breathe, but it's significantly cooler so it won't be that bad. Ha! Was that ever a dumb idea. We only did 4.8 miles before we called it quits. The altitude kicked our asses. Our average pace was around 13:00. Yikes. Even my hilly run in San Francisco was faster than that, so I know it had to be the altitude, not the hills we were running on. It was also a lot warmer than we anticipated.

It was a pretty huge confidence killer actually. I said to my husband the night before that I was ready to take the 12 mile run and make it my bitch. Then for it to just be a complete fail was really hard and killed any sense of morale I had for the race. Even in runs following that it's been hard, I keep thinking that since I had a hard time with that one that the race itself is going to be hard too. I know deep down that won't be the case at least. Anaheim is flat, and the temperature will be significantly cooler than it is here, and I'm sure just the temperature difference alone will really help. I know I can run 11 miles, and a half marathon is just two miles further--that's not even 25 minutes at my normal pace.

I did 30 minutes on the treadmill at the gym today and felt great. I ran at 11:30 for most of it and bumped my pace up to 11:19 for the last five minutes. I even enjoyed it, which is rare for me on the treadmill. That helped my confidence a lot--if I can feel like that for the actual race, I should be in good shape. I'm not looking to set any sort of time goal, I really just want to finish and not be disappointed in my time. As long as I finish under 12:30 I'll be pleased.