Spring – Finally!!

There is nothing better than the first few runs in good weather!! It even makes hard workouts seem that much easier 🙂

I’m at the 3.5 weeks until race day mark, which is both exciting and scary :). Fargo is still under water, which concerns me a little bit… will the river receed enough in the next 3 weeks??

I’m excited for this Saturday. I’m running in the Earth Day 20 mile race in St. Cloud. It should be a really good test of my fitness — I haven’t quite decided what my strategy will be (how many miles at marathon pace should I do?), and I don’t know if I’ll have one… sometimes it’s best just to race without a plan, listening to your body and responding to competition. I’d like to take it out a little easier, picking it up to marathon pace somewhere around the 5-6 mile mark. That’d give me 14-15 miles at marathon pace, which would be a really good, grueling workout. I guess my ony real “strategy” for the race is to make sure I have something left at the end so I can practice finishing strong. No more of this “survival” running like I did at the end of Houston!! It’d be fun to be in the top 3 as well, but we’ll see who shows up on race day.

The race will also give me the chance to practice with gels, water stops, breakfast, etc. I don’t think I did a good job of that at Houston — I was pretty dizzy (low sugar?) at the end, and I know I was dehydrated.

Hopefully my legs taper up well the last part of this week. I’ve been going pretty hard lately (84 miles last week!!!), and they’re just a little more sluggish. I did a 1200 meter VO2 max workout last evening, and even though my legs didn’t feel “fast”, I was able to hit them at: 4:10, 4:11, 4:08, 4:01 (it’s downhill). I was surprised. So even though I’m tired, I think my legs are strong and getting faster. Add a little bit of taper in there, and let’s hope it equates to a good race!