747 miles for the year. That's 294 miles more than I'd run by this time last year, but in terms of intensity and types of workouts, I feel like a lot of what I'm doing is very similar to last year's routine. So does that mean that I'm in at least as good, if not better, shape than I was last year? I feel good, but I don't feel fast. That might just mean that I'm tired though, so this is going to be an easy week for me. Comfortably paced runs of 5-7 miles and a rest day. Then Saturday morning, I'll take a deep breath and find out where I am.
For the record, I am feeling very, very anxious about this half. I am beginning to obsess a little bit as I irrationally go about the task of constructing a minute by minute comparison of what I was doing last April to what I am doing now:
| * | I am five pounds heavier this year than I was last. |
| * | I'd done two more quarter workouts and three more mile repeat workouts before the half last year than I have this year and my mile repeat times were significantly faster than what I've done this year. |
| * | I ran a monster hill workout two weeks before the half last year and haven't done any this year. |
| * | The number of long (15+) runs I've done this year is comparable, but I did them at a slighly slower pace last year. |
| * | And as I pointed out above, my mileage base is much larger this year. |
Last year I ran a 1:25 in this race, a PR by four minutes, but that time was suspect even then. I figured out today by exactly how much. There was a poorly marked turn that a number of us missed, but were not held accountable for. It did not affect my finishing place and at the time I figured out that it probably only affected my time by about 30 seconds. I now think that was incorrect; it gave me a 54 1/2 second advantage. Thanks to the handy, dandy gmap-pedometer, I can now visualize exactly what happened....just before the 9-mile-mark, I missed the right hand turn onto Center Drive and instead, continued straight on Parsons Blvd until it intersected with the course about a tenth of a mile later under the Whitestone Expressway. The difference between the two routes comes to .14 of a mile, which at a 6:30 pace, should have taken me 53 seconds. So, there you have it. I probably should have been disqualified, which would have been a bummer, but the fact is, I only ran 12.96 miles.
In practical terms for this year, it means that I only have to run a 1:25:53 to equal my performace from last year....obviously, still no easy thing. Do I think I'm ready to do that? My gut tells me no, but I'm not really interested in psyching myself out either. If you decide beforehand that you can not do a thing, does that just give you permission to fail? Or does that remove some of the pressure and allow you approach the task unburdened by expectations?
The bottom line is that all my hard work this spring is directed towards a goal in October. I just don't want a disappointing race now to discourage me from my long-term objective: that damn sub-3 marathon. The current "message to self" is that anything under 1:29 will make me happy. Whether that's really true or not though, remains to be seen.