RACE DAY PREP UPDATE
I suppose first thing's first: There's a legit chance I might not run this race. There are thunderstorms in the forecast all day, including in the morning. I'm mentally preparing for the chance of a cancelled, postponed, or course-shortened race. There's nothing on their website about weather policy other than that the race is rain or shin and that they don't have to give us our money back if the race is cancelled for any reason. So I wrote to them to get more specifics about when decisions will be made and how runners will be notified. I have to also admit that there's a tiny part of me considering a DNS. Not because I'm not ready/willing to race, but just because there are a lot of ifs around the weather and we're already super busy (tomorrow is my last day at work, I fly to Atlanta Sunday for onsite training at my new company on Monday, AND we have a baseball game to go to here in DC Saturday night if the weather allows), so to spend $200 to go to the Eastern Shore and stay overnight for a race that is cancelled or shortened is a risk proposition I'm really thinking about right now. Also
@MoanasPapa suffered a minor injury several weeks ago that set him too far back in his training to race, so it's just me. He and my daughter were going to spectate, which was going to be great, but if it's going to be pouring, that will be miserable for them. Anyways, I think the part of me that would fear deciding to DNS on a race that DOES go ahead as planned will end up winning and I'll probably make the trip. But this is the first time I've considered a DNS so I thought it was worth noting.
Ok, so assuming I DO go to the race and it DOES go ahead as planned, what's the plan? Well, as I said, tomorrow is my last day at my current company. I should be done in the early afternoon, after which I'll drive home and meet up with
@MoanasPapa. We'll pack up my gear (more below) and then get our daughter from daycare and make the 2-ish hour drive to St. Michael's. We'll pick up my bib/packet and check in to our hotel, which is close to the start of the race. Then we'll find a place to eat, wander around, and head back to the hotel to hang out/head to bed.
I'm in wave 4 for the race, which is the final wave. My wave should go at 7:30. I'll get up, have a quick bite to eat (bagel or toast), get dressed, and head to the start line. My plan right now is just to walk there, but I'll figure out if that's realistic once we get to the town the race is in. I talked to Coach earlier this week about strategy, and with T+D in the 120s (62+62 at the start and 64+64 around my projected finish), plus 100% chance of rain, I'm going to have to take a more conservative pace than planned. I'm aiming for around 10:59, maybe a hair slower, for the first couple of miles. Once I find my groove, I'll tick up to around 10:46 until I hit mile 11 or so, then I'll give whatever I have left. I'm still hoping to finish under 2:25, which is close to that +/- 5 minutes of his predicted finish time that I have as my goal for this race. My plan is to check my Garmin a few times in the first mile because I want to find the right tempo and settle in to it, then try to limit checking to mile markers. I might just bring a sticker with me if I feel like the checking is getting in to my head too much.
In terms of gear: I'm wearing my favorite nike shorts (with Glide this time!), my favorite brooks running bra, and an underarmour singlet that does a good job wicking. I'm also going to wear my Brooks Run Happy hat to keep the rain out of my face. Balega socks, and the current pair of NB 1400v5s (I wear this model shoe for every race). I've mentioned in the past that my hydration pack gave me some neck/back pain the last long run that I did with it, and I'm not in the mood to deal with that again. So I'm going to carry my Nathan hip belt that I usually wear for shorter runs. Both bottles will be full of Tailwind, and I'll bring clifbloks for fuel, too. This will be the first time I use the water stations at a race for water (I used the water pack I don't want to deal with during my last HM), so I'll report back on how clumsy/awkward I am going through those.
I guess that's it for now. I wish I was more excited for this race. I think between the fact that DH is injured and not running, the weather, and the other stuff we have going on, it seems more like an item on a to do list than a victory lap. I hope to report back with a happier outlook after the race.