Entering Go Time

This week is all about holding back, resting, waiting to spring forth onto the Half Marathon to be. It's almost Go Time for the Goal Race of the Spring.

Yesterday, I finished off the past week with a solid run that was all about the above theme as I tried to hold back as much as possible while questioning whether I was actually holding back enough. As I ran what ended up being 10 miles  (16.1km) in a decent 1:19:36 for a faster than usual 4:56/km (7:56/mile) average pace (with most of my splits in the 4:40's, or 7:30's per mile) I wondered if I was leaving a bit too much out on the training run. Then, at around the halfway point, a cyclist wheeled up beside me and we proceeded to have a conversation that lasted several minutes. He asked lots of questions about my training, commented on my lack of heel striking, and that sort of thing. Once he went off on his bike ride I figured I'd passed the "talk test" and carried on as before. The only part of the run that was taxing was the climb out of the Valley up Pottery Road. Other than that, everything felt pretty good! I finished off the run with a 4:28 split and bought some flowers for my lovely wife to celebrate Mother's Day.

Today the theme continues with no working out whatsoever! To make sure I'd keep this promise I did NOT bring my workout gear with me to the office. I am NOT going to the gym to do leg weights, and I am NOT replacing that with something else. It helps that my left collar bone/shoulder is sore for some mysterious reason or I might have done upper body stuff despite promising myself that I would use this week to rest. I don't know what happened, but the joint where the collar bone inserts near the neck is very sore and swollen. I must have tweaked it doing weights on Friday or slept on it wrong. It doesn't impede my running so I'm not too worried about it.

It's tough for me, but I am telling myself that there is nothing I can do this week to increase my fitness for race day. The work has been done. It's time to rest and give it all when the time comes.

With that in mind I drove the first section of the HM race course yesterday just to see the one decent climb that we will have to traverse and to vaccinate any potential nasty surprises. Indeed, the hill occurring between 3-4km in the race is long (600m-700m) and never lets up, but it's not super steep, at least not from what I could see inside the car as we drove up. I will have to contend myself with running a good pace while trying to keep the appropriate level of perceived effort in this section or I might pay for it in the end. I've been told that the long downhill section on Rosedale Valley Road is what gets a lot of people as it tears at the quads. For some reason I am not worried at all about that and figure it will actually be fun to run downhill for a long stretch and, in theory, maintain pace whithout working all that hard. The last 2km of the race is also uphill, but nothing really worth noting as far as grade goes. Besides, it's just a half marathon.

Anyway, I will think a bit more about my goals for this race and will likely put those out here on the blog before the end of the week. But right now I am feeling fairly confident that I will have a great race!

As long as I don't over do it on my runs this week...