Race Week - Athen's Half Marathon

To be nervous means to be human.  There is not much we, as humans, can do about getting nervous.  This is just part of our biology.  What we can control is how we channel the nerves.  It is easy to let the nerves make you doubt.  I one thing I try to do is visualize the race and trust my training.  I know I have put in the work to hit the goal times.

Two weeks ago I did a pretty good simulated race workout and it went really well.  It was a 15 mile workout that had 9ish miles at faster than race pace.  The 9ish miles were at the back end of the workout so there was some fatigue buildup in the legs.  Everything went to plan and I even went faster than expected on some splits.  Some valuable lessons were also learned.  One lesson was that I need one more gel earlier into the race.  This will insure that my glycogen levels maintain a consistent level until the end.  The benefit to the Athen's Half Marathon is the first mile is almost completely downhill.  Taking advantage of this downhill will be crucial.  It will be a fine balance of not going out too fast but not wasting the free speed from gravity.  The rest of the race will just be about hitting nutrition and maintaining goal pace.

It looks like there will be good weather for the race too.  So far I have been lucky with my races.  Every race has been sunny with decent temperatures.  Even my race at the end of January was cold but not unbearable like it had been all winter.

I want to put a couple videos up that I think athletes need to watch about running and the mental side to racing.  Let me know what you guys think of these videos.