Let's Rock & Roll!!

Whoah...whoah...wait! What happened? I have to do what in how many days? That's right. The San Jose Rock & Roll Half Marathon (13.1 miles) is THIS Sunday!

Do you remember my blog post when I first signed up? I wasn't even running a mile, and I commented that even DRIVING 13.1 miles was difficult (stereo broken, had to pee?).

Well - BRING IT. You know I will! (bring ibuprofin and cab fare)

Nikki and I are up to 6.5 miles, and I might have another couple of miles in me for the big day without causing too much injury? We'll see how it goes. We don't have a definite strategy other than how we've been handling our long runs on weekends - go as slow and as far as we possibly can while staying relatively comfortable. There was only one moment during our last long run when I asked Nikki if she'd seen any good movies lately. I was hoping that she would go into a lengthy discourse about some fascinating movie so that I could focus on that and not the fact that it's gotten awfully hot lately! well, she hadn't seen any. Can you believe it?

That slightly panicked (TALK to me for God's sake, I'm gonna DIE out here!!!)feeling always seems to occur about 2 or so miles in to a long run. If I can get past that point, it actually does seem to get easier. I have to remember that come race day!

I think a good race day plan might be to run 8 miles, walk 2, then run the last 3. Yeah, that might work out. I'm no good at intervals. Once I stop running, it hurts when I first start again. I only want to do that ONCE, if possible.

Since we're not racing for time, just for distance and the fun of it, I haven't been doing "speed work", i.e. sprints, Fartlek training, running hills, etc. I haven't been training too hard at all, in fact. I'm still coughing a bit and have some soreness in my back and shoulder blade from that, but wait 'til I'm 100%! For now, I've just been running the most minimal amount (2-3 times a week) to still be able to increase my distance comfortably. I think that's a good strategy for me.

I'm not a competitive runner, just a casual runner. It still sounds pretty cool to say that. If you're familiar with some of my older posts, I wanted this badly. I could barely stumble a block six months ago, then a mile was actually do-able. And now almost 7? I think that qualifies me as a runner.

I am a runner.

See you at the finish line!