Race Week Thoughts

This week marks my first "serious" race week in about a year.  When I initially embarked on marathon training for the Madison Marathon, I had planned to have the Sioux Falls half be my benchmark race mid-training to give me an idea where I was fitness-wise 9 weeks out from race day.  A few months ago, I thought I could maybe set a course PR (1:52 or 1:53) if training went all fine and dandy.

Thus far, I've put in the miles (save for the week I was in Vegas and logged 0 miles, and a few missed runs here or there), I've been impressed (knock on wood) with my body's ability to hold up to marathon mileage, and my endurance is coming back.  Unfortunately, I know my body's limits and know that it can only handle speed work with a strong base already in place.  The Pfitz program has a large endurance mesocycle which is predominantly what I've been doing the last 8 weeks.  So with that being said, I'm pretty freakin' nervous about my speed.  Meaning:  I don't think I have any, anymore.  Hmmm.

Based on the current forecast, it should finally be cool on race day.  Although it's not Jeri approved COLD.  That'll help me tremendously.  But it's weird for me to go in to a race without really knowing what I'm capable of.

Currently my goals are as follows:

• Beat last year's time--2:05.  Compared to last year's training log, I'm running way more miles, slightly faster.  But I did some speedwork (very sporadically) last summer, so that makes me slightly nervous again because of my lack of speedwork this time.
• Beat 2011's time--1:59.  I was in shape to run a low 1:50 and had major IT band issues, where they locked up and I shuffled along to a barely sub-2.  For confidence going in to Madison, I would really like a sub-2.
• Ideally I'd like to be around 1:55, but man that seems impossibly hard at the moment, so we'll see.  Perhaps if all the stars align, and I can hitch a ride on a unicorn's back, perhaps I'll hit this marker.  ;)

If I don't hit a sub 2 this weekend, I don't think that means I can't run a sub 4 in Madison.  But it would be a great boost of confidence to me.  I have sped up considerably since I started running more consistently this past May, but I'm not to where I was when I was running well.   But I'm certain I will continue speeding up, especially with the crazy speed work that Pfitz has planned for me.  EEPS!  

Above all, I'm just excited to be back to doing something that I love and seeing progress for my hard work.  I <3 running and racing.  Whoop!