On the Brink

Tomorrow is Race Day. The Applefest Half Marathon. 13.1 miles through the hills of Hollis, NH. The weather is supposed to be cloudy with the temps in the high 50's. Alka will be attending. Perfect.

I've been looking at the race course on usaft.org. I've also been reviewing the course description from the Applefest website. I wish I could see exactly where the hills are. Oh well.

I'll be one of 1500 racers. There's also a relay event going on; I'm not sure how many are entered in that event.

This will be my first race in 23 years. This will be my first race with a timing chip. This will be my first race using Gu as fuel. This will be my first race using ChiRunning techniques. This is the first race where I have the specter of an injury hanging over me (right hip's been fine,but, it's at the back of my mind)

If you told me a year ago I'd be running in a half marathon I'd probably think you were nuts. A little over three years ago, I thought I'd never seen the underside of 200 lbs again.

Long range I'd like to get back to marathoning. The Hyannis Marathon is in February. Training for 26.2 miles during a New England winter sounds pretty nuts but, you never know. I would really like both Alka & Priyanka to try running in at least one road race.

Short range. Tomorrow I would like to clock in as close to 2 hours as possible. I think 130 minutes is more realistic. No matter what happens on the road Saturday I feel I've already won.