1.5 Days till the 1/2

About a day and a half till the Little Rock 1/2 Marathon and Marathon. I have my goals and expectations set, not really sure how it will turn out. Last year was my first ever 1/2 Marathon and I ran a 2:28. This year I would really like to run between 2:12 and 2:15 which I think is realistic. A 2:18 would be my bottom number. I'll be highly disappointed if I get anything below that. I am not too worried about this one as much as I was last year. Once you have done a full marathon, a 1/2 is more like a fun run which I hope this one will be.

You just never know till race day how things will turn out, especially for marathons and half marathons. Sunday, race day is calling for warmer weather than what we have been training in. Right now, 8am race start will have temperatures of about 53 degrees which will be nice. Humidity may be a little higher than normal. For the full marathoners temps will get into the upper 60's to near 70. Not so good. Not being accustomed to warm weather running will hurt some times. We might get lucky in the 1/2 but it looks like shorts and short sleeve tech shirt weather for sure.

Speaking of weather, last night I ran 4 miles in Magness Creek and it was HOT. The temp was about 62 degrees at 6pm and I'll have to say this was probably one of the worst runs I have done in a while. I don't know if it was the temperatures or just the fact my legs were tired and I was running alone. In either case, I had to push myself just to get my 4 miles in. My left foot was hurting me some which I probably should have taped it and I didn't. Come race day I will be taking all the proper precautions. I really don't know how I ended up with the times I had last night as I walked probably two times in each mile after the first one. I just felt sluggish and really couldn't push it. Here are my times:
Total miles - 4.0
Time - 42:41
Avg. Pace - 10:40
1-10:17
2-10:45
3-10:48
4-10:49

Wednesday night I ran with Annette, Brenda and Michelle in Blooming Ridge. They all wanted a slow easy run. I usually laugh when they say this because it never happens. Or maybe their slow and mine are different. Either way we had a great run. I did feel good on this one and ended up with 5.1 miles. I did a few fartleks during this run, i'd let the girls get ahead and then I would run hard to catch up. I did this right before mile 5 and almost wiped out when a car blinded me and I ran up on the curb. I was really having fun with this at that time, probably running a low 7 pace catching up to the girls. The great thing about this run was there was little or no wind. Temps were in the upper 40's so it was nice. We have run in bad wind so much lately it just wears you down after a while. I would love to run this same pace through the half Sunday. Here are my times:
Total Miles - 5.1
Avg. Pace - 10:01
1-10:00
2-9:55
3-10:10
4-10:25
5-9:49

I love the fact that mile 5 was the fastest mile.

Tomorrow we will be going to watch the "Little Rockers" kids do their final mile of their marathon in Little Rock. Then a bunch of us are going to the Expo and then out for some carb loading at Corino's. It's going to be a weekend full of running activities it looks like.