Lewis & Clark Eve

Tomorrow is the half marathon.  My first half marathon, I'd venture to say.  I'm already looking to sign up for a full marathon next year as well as starting some trail running.  Of course, probably .25 miles into the race tomorrow, I'll be wondering what the heck I was thinking and telling myself that no way will I do a marathon because I'm an idiot to have thought I can do this.  And then I'll keep running.

This week has been interesting and challenging.  My training plan called for a taper.  2 easy miles on Tuesday and a 5-mile tempo run on Thursday.  I got Tuesday's run in, but I wore a different pair of shoes to work on Wednesday and got a nasty blister on my heel.  I'm still annoyed with myself.  They're the grandma-ist pair of flats you ever saw, they aren't even that cute (certainly not worth a blister), and I should've known better to jump into regular dress shoes after a summer of sandals.  Anyway, I got up early Thursday morning to run...just early enough to run...and when I put on my running shoes it hurt so much to walk.  I knew we had some moleskin upstairs, but I didn't have enought time to find it and get it on and then still do my run, so I put the run off til that evening and ended up skipping it.  For a blister.  And then I read this blog and was completely humbled.  Not just by the distance (of course by the distance!!) but by what his poor feet must have gone through (and I didn't click on the link to see).

So I've run two miles when I'm used to running more like 20ish a week.  I've gotten to sleep in more in the mornings.  And boy, have I been crabby and tired.  It's funny, because I hate getting up early, but I've gotten better at it through running.  Even when I want to sleep in, when I have a run planned and that alarm goes off, I'm up.  On those run days, I'm so much more awake at school, even though I've been up since 4:15.  I think it must really help my mood to run...although, granted, there's been plenty of reason behind my crabbiness this week!

I picked up my race packet Thursday night.  Usually I give away the race shirts, but I like this one.  What I really like is that it fits.  :)  I got a medium (thank you running that I no longer need an XL or L), and when they handed it to me I thought...I don't know about this...but it fits!  With all the running I've been doing (not that much compared to what others do, but a lot more than the NONE I was doing before), I haven't lost much of any weight, but I'm definitely more toned. 

Right now, I'm not really nervous.  I'm pretty excited about tomorrow.    I was stressing a little about what to wear, what to eat before (NOT tacos!), etc., and then I realized that it's not much more than what I've already done several times.  I feel pretty confident that, while I may not meet my top goal (a sub-2:00 time), I'll be able to finish...and no matter what, since this is my first HM, I'll have a new PR.  I've put in the training for this, and I know I can do it.

I was a little sad that it's almost over after training for and focusing on the half marathon so much, but I'm going to do the Go! St. Louis 10K on the 17th and then I think I'm doing a 10 mile run on Nov. 27.  I'm a little excited for the shorter distance because, now that I've been running further and building my endurance, I'm looking forward to building some speed.  Always something else to accomplish, and so many blogs out there to show you just how much more there is!