Next Weekend’s Race Goals

Yolanda / Pixabay

As typically happens, my next race has snuck up on me.  Next weekend, I’m running the Donna Half. (Side note: I have no idea what the official name of this race is.  The full is the 26.2 with Donna.  So is the half the 26.2 Donna Half?  13.1 with Donna?  Who knows.)

Last year, coming into this race, I had big goals.  I was in great running shape.  I had been pushing myself all winter and working on my speed.  I wanted a strong finish.  And I got it.  Not a PR, but the fastest race I had run in a long time.  But it was also a very telling race for me.  I kept having to slow down due to my heart rate getting too high, and it felt like I had sort of reached my running peak.

(Yes, I realize if it were my actual peak it would have been a PR, but had it been 10 degrees cooler, I would have had less HR issues and may have gotten that PR.)

Now, that’s not to say that I won’t shave off a few minutes here and there with temperature and weight loss and the right course, but  it was a realization that I’m not going to get much faster no matter what I do.  And that’s okay.

This winter, I’ve been focusing on my cycling.  Lots more time on the bike.  And I’m much happier.  I enjoy trainer workouts so much more than running workouts.  So I still feel like I’m in good shape, just not running focused shape.

I’m not worried about the race.  It has a 32 minute per mile pace requirement.  Yes, you read that right.  32 minutes per mile.  I can totally do that.  So the question is what do I do?  Do I go out and push to see where I’m at?  Do I stop at all of the driveway bars (and the actual bar at mile 7)?  I’m thinking the real answer is somewhere in between.  I want to run strong and not lollygag my way through the race, but I also want to be sure I’m having fun. I said a while back that I don’t want to run any more 3+ hour half marathons, and so that doesn’t allow me a lot of lollygagging time.

So we’ll see what happens.  The goal ultimately is to have fun, because if it’s not fun, why do it?

Anyone else running Donna?

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