Nervous

I have been a little worried here lately because I was just not getting excited about the upcoming half-marathon Erin and I are doing. Well, that has all changed in the last few days! I am getting really nervous about the race and it is all that I think about most of the time. I just keep running through the race in my head over and over again.

I was hoping to get an idea of what kind of shape I was in at the 10k I did last weekend. Erin had decided to do the 5k instead and left me to push Ellie in the 10k; not the most ideal racing conditions. Erin finished first in the women's 5k race and I finished 3rd in the 10k. I ended up running 39 min. and some change but that was after stopping to buckle Ellie back in the stroller at one point and stopping two other times to pick up her Dora the Explorer book off of the ground. There was also a nasty head wind on the way back and anyone who runs with a jogging stroller knows how hard it is to push those things into the wind. They essentially act like a big parachute. So in the end, I still really had know idea what kind of shape I was in.

This past Saturday on an 8 mile run I decided to time some of my mile splits. I usually don't time my self and just go for mileage and base my effort on how I feel that day. It was a normal day so I felt my splits would accurately represent what my normal training pace was. I hit the split between mile 3 and 4 in 6:45 and then between mile 5 and 6 in 6:42. I defiantly tried not to pick up the pace because I knew I was timing myself so I felt those accurately represented my normal run days. I was happy with those times considering that I had just done 10 hill repeats up the Arboretum main trail just a couple days before. I was so happy in fact that I decided to tempo the last two miles home which I really regretted the next day when I had to do my long run of 16 miles!

I know this is a boring post to most people but it is just an update of my training for the Spirit of Pittsburgh Half Marathon. I think I am probably going to do the Auggie's 5k this weekend to see what I can run a 5k in right now. I will give an update as to how that goes.

Enjoy this beautiful fall season!

Kevin