Friday, February 18, 2011

Ready to race!

This Sunday I'll be running my first race of 2011, and my second since giving birth to my son in October. I'm running the HMRRC Winter Marathon Relay, taking on the first leg -- 9.2 miles. Fortunately, the weather looks like it will be better than it was last year, with the forecast calling for a high of 32 and only light wind (not nearly as nice as it has been the past few days but I'll take it).

Even more fortunate, I'm again running the relay with Amanda and Suzy! AND my friends Bridget, Janis and Melissa are also running on teams. Let's call it a running party, friends.

I've gone back and forth on how to run this race. Part of me thinks I should treat it as a long run and settle in to a nice, easy pace, keeping my eye on the half marathon in 6 weeks. Then, there's that other part of me. The part that says, "Hey, a race is a race and this one is as legitimate as that half you're training for. Race on, Happy Runner."

I'm inclined to listen to that other part.

But I also don't want to jeopardize my training by pushing too hard so I've come up with what I believe is a good compromise: I'll try to run my leg of the race at (what I hope will be) my half marathon pace. Since the race is just 4 miles shorter than the half marathon it should give me a good idea of how I'll handle the pace over the longer distance. I plan to test out my half marathon fueling plan on Sunday, too. I guess this race will be a bit of a half-way test.

I'm excited. I feel like my running is much better than it was when I ran my first post-preggo race in the beginning of December. I hope that proves to be the case!

Have a great weekend, everyone. Good luck to everyone who is racing!

~ Felice

13 comments:

Julie D said...

Have fun, Felice! I'm sure you'll do great. =) Looking forward to the race report. ;)

Darlene said...

Good luck. Can't wait to read about it.

Vava said...

Good luck with the race! Your plan sounds like the perfect one.

misszippy said...

Go for the speed and see what happens! Have a great time--relays rock.

Sarah Woulfin said...

Have a great race! Have a super runnin' party :)

Rose @ Eat, Drink, and Be Meiri said...

Have a great race! I can't wait to hear about it.

Suzy said...

Sunday is going to be great! I'd love for you to blog about what your fueling plan for the half is sometime.

Marlene said...

Good luck and have fun at the relay!!

J said...

Good luck this weekend! Good idea to run the race at half marathon pace! It will be good training!!

Lindsay said...

good luck this weekend! i hope your first race back is a good one :)

EndorphinBuzz said...

Wow! I missed a lot. I hope you did well on the race and I'll try to keep more current!

Anonymous said...

You, Suzy and Amanda are too cute together!

Anonymous said...

You, Suzy and Amanda are too cute together!

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