Dress Rehearsal

This morning I am up and at 'em and ready to go run a half marathon at my goal race pace. The idea is to get into a grove, practice race pace, my race day clothes and test drive my nutrition strategy. Yup, I'll go put down 3 gels for this thing even though it is only half. It will be good to see how my body responds. I slept terrible last night (boo), but the weather is amazing (30s start; 40s finish). Even better, the race start/finish is less than half a mile from my house and follows the trail that passes right through here.

The race is brand new to my town and includes a 5K and a half marathon. It is the first race here, so I knew without a doubt I would do it when I heard it was starting up. However, it is WAY too close to my goal marathon to race the half, so I initially decided I would run the 5K with my son. Well, unfortunately this week was a very rough one for my son and he did a fair bit of lashing out at us (hello 16 year old daughter, wait, what?!). Without going to detail, in the midst of a huge fit/fight with his dad, he screamed at me that he would not run with me this weekend. This was meant to be hurtful, and we told him that was fine - that privilege was gone for him. And so it was. :(

On to plan B.

That sucks, but I am actually excited to be running the half because I have never been able to pull this type of thing off during peak season. Sure, I can log marathon pace miles without issue, but actually constrain myself to marathon pace during a shorter race when I am in peak fitness? Never. My competitive drives kick in and there is one speed only - and that is as fast as I can go that day.

This time is different. My goal race is 2 weeks from today and racing it would be beyond stupid. Also, I was scheduled for 9 miles at goal race pace on Thursday, but could not fit it in. So I switched it up to 13 today. Gotta get my workout in. :) My plan is to do the whole thing at marathon pace, but if I don't feel great (which unfortunately I haven't lately - some stomach bug), I will just do 9 miles at race pace and then cool down. Solid plan if I do say so myself.

Jake has a Plan B too. We had preregistered to run the 5K and he went to packet pickup with me last night. I switched to the half and Jake picked up his bib for the 5K. The ladies at the registration table were more than gushing over him because he was the youngest kid registered. Of course he was so proud to tell them he has run several 5Ks. He then ran into one of his best buddies and excitedly announced he was running it. So, he decided even if he couldn't run with me, he was going to do it on his own. We are okay with this given the location and the fact John could navigate him to the start/finish. Well, we got home and he was so excited. It was frankly pretty awesome to take in. He had me cut the race tech tee, which was way too big, so it would fit him. He grabbed some of my arm-warmers and pulled out all of his race day gear. He wrote his name on his bib and enlisted a friend to get up early and run with him. I always thought his drive to run was fueled by competition with his brother. I was wrong.

The 5K starts 1/2 hour after the half, so I will miss it entirely. I have second-guessed my choice not to run with him several times. I love watching my boys run. And I LOVE LOVE LOVE running with them. But I had to stick to my guns, and what was taken away was getting to race with mom. So it is. I am so glad he still wants to run though and I hope he has a great run this morning. I am waking him up in about 30 minutes to help him get going.

Wish us luck!