It's now a waiting game...

Tomorrow is the half marathon. I'm more anxious than I've ever been because I want to do well. In actual fact I want to set a Personal Best and not get injured doing it. Strategy? I have none and I never have. I usually determine how I'm going to race once the gun goes off.

I went to bed later than I wanted to last night. Microsoft support called just after 11 pm to help me figure out my wireless network problem. We had a scheduled appointment at 9 pm, which they were 2 hours late for, and I was getting ready to go to bed when they called. By the time we finished it was 12:30 am. Throughout the process they kept blaming the problems on the ISP and Apple, but I can be a strong personality and I wouldn't accept their conclusions. It didn't make sense to me. Needless to say they almost resolved the problem and then told me I needed to call Apple to get a password. After I got off the phone, I played around with the computer and got it working. Microsoft was wrong, I didn't need Apple.

By the time I got to bed it was 1 am and I woke up at 7 am this morning. I started loading print drivers on the laptop and then decided that I should really go back to bed and get a couple more hours of sleep in order to be better prepared for the race. I'm glad I did because I felt much better when I got up. I was refreshed. 

After about 4 large cups of coffee I went for my pre-race run. Ten minutes into the run it started to rain and hail. I didn't mind running in it and actually enjoyed it, especially because my iPhone was playing some awesome and motivating music. The only downside was that my shoes got soaking wet. I did about 5 surges and according to my watch during one of those surges I was running at a 4:32 per mile pace. I never thought my legs could move that fast, even if it was just for 15 seconds. Wouldn't you know it, just when I got home the sun came out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

I kept my effort very easy on the run, except for the surges and averaged 122 bpm. Afterwards I was making my banana pancakes and my standing heart rate got down to 45 bpm. If it can have a resting heart rate that low tomorrow I'll have the best race I'm capable of doing. It may not be a PB, but it will be the best I have in me. 

I'm a little nervous because this is the first race I'm doing without a few pre race beers the night before and I'm hoping it doesn't have a negative effect on my performance. I've always raced well when I've had a few beers the night before. Hopefully it's just superstition. Now all I can do is wait, try not to eat to much tonight and get a good nights sleep and make sure I set the alarm and get up in time. My greatest fear, and I've had dreams about this, is sleeping in and not getting to the race in time.

Pre Race Run - 34:53 / 4.16 miles / 8:22 pace / 122 avg hr