In the thrill of the moment last year, after running the marathon and getting a PR, I registered for the half. I sort of figured that it was a good way to get another trip and the medal is really cool and that if I decided not to do it I would only lose $80. (only???!!!!). I laid off running for a couple of weeks after the marathon, and then started some easy winter running, just trying to maintain a base. I joined a track club in the spring and began having the best racing season of my life. PRs all over the place, age group awards for the first time and some great new running friends.
And then.....
I ran a really hard 20K race in August, taking 2nd in my age group with some hearty competition. Perhaps I ran too hard that day, or maybe I was doing too many miles total or maybe God just wanted to shrink my ego a bit, but two days later I felt a pain in my foot and within hours was diagnosed with a stress fracture. My fall marathon (and what was planned as my Boston Qualifier) was out. My relay team would have to run without me in Michigan (where we still came in 12th out of 250 and down a runner), and Disney was looking iffy as well. I spent 9 weeks in a boot cast and did a ton of swimming. I even went to Disney with that cast!
I debated long and hard about trying to train for the half with really only 10 weeks to do it and some pretty weak legs. I decided that I would just do the bare minimum for training, enough to get me across the finish line and get my Donald medal. So I started over, running only 5 minutes as a time. I increased weekly, following the drs orders to a T. I didn't race, I didn't even run hard. I started doing longer runs in mid november and by mid december had some long runs of 10 miles under my belt, although they weren't as speedy as I would like.
It was around the same time that I started running with my group again, on the easy tuesday night runs. I was shocked when I was able to keep pace with some of the speedier guys, if only for a mile or two. Then I entered a local race series, not because I thought I would race, but because its a fun series in the middle of winter, there is always free good at the end, and lots of my friends were doing it (making my think of my mother, "if your friends jumped off a cliff, would you do it too?").
The first race was two weeks ago. A 10K in some nasty freezing rain. I'd been to a holiday party the night before and lets just say I wasn't feeling my perkiest. For the 1st mile people are blowing by me like I was standing still, I'm huffing and puffing and worried about a code brown out here in the cold and thinking "what have I gotten myself into". I can hear the timer at the first mile marker yelling out the times and was very pleasantly surprised to find that my first mile had been a 7:38. 7:38!!?? But I'm not racing...or am I? I decided to see what would happen, just try to stay even, not slow down, not push any harder. The second mile was 7:43, third was 7:35 and so on. Mile 5 was the slowest at 8 minutes, but there was a huge hill. I finished in 48:06, only 20 seconds slower than my best 10K ever and it was freezing rain and I was untrained. Hmmm....
The wheels start turning about the half, maybe I can do pretty well? Not as good as I could have last summer, but still not bad. I start thinking about 1:45 or 1:50 as a goal. I make a pace band to wear so I can stay on track. I do some harder runs. I increase my miles to a peak of 37 (still far off my pre-stress fracture peaks, but not too shabby either) for two consecutive weeks. I ran another race yesterday, attempting to feel out the right pace. I was good for the first 3 miles of the 7.5 and then just decided to enjoy a beautiful day and not push it, not with the big kahuna just a week away.
I've been checking the weather religiously. I was planning on running in shorts and a longsleeve turtle neck with my flame orange cap, but now might have to switch to short sleeves with temps that might be around 60 for most of the race. Given the rotten cold weather we've had in NY, 60 will feel postively tropical and I might have to just race in the sportsbra and shorts.
Anyway, I'm hoping that this is a confidence building race. I'm hoping that it preps me for a good spring racing season and is a building block for the fall marathon that should get me to Boston (if I don't tank, which is what has always happened before). That's a lot of pressure on Donald and I'm hoping the duck comes through for me!
