The Day Before Tomorrow

Hi all,

There's only one day left till the Reading Half Marathon, and I've been busy running around trying to get everything into place. When planning for a race, getting the logistics correct is so important as it can make or break a performance. Right now, I've mostly gotten everything done, and have a bit of time writing this blog entry and cooking dinner before I have an early night tonight, hopefully all fresh for the big day tomorrow.

The biggest worries for me are transportation to the start line, some uncomfortable niggles in my feet, and race morning in the few hours prior to the race itself. I live quite far away from the stadium outside of Reading, and public transport on Sunday isn't that frequent. There are free shuttle buses from Reading station that will take runners to and from the stadium. The first train to Reading station from my house starts at 8:40 am which is far too late. Buses near my house start around 8:00 am, which is also unacceptable. After looking at public transport schedules for nearly an hour, I found that there is a bus service that runs at almost all hours of the day, but I have to walk around 25 minutes from my house to get to this bus stop. At least it beats walking to Reading station, which would take me over an hour. And I'd rather not waste my energy doing this on race day. Sometimes I wish I lived closer to the stadium or in Reading itself, then I'd have one less thing to worry about!

As for the uncomfortable niggles I have in my feet, I've just developed a blister under my right foot, which will no doubt be uncomfortable when I run. I think my current pair of work shoes may have aggravated it. I've had many blisters and, normally for me, they heal quite fast. I also have a slightly sore spot under my left heel, and I'm really hoping that it's not a serious injury, or Plantar Fasciitis. If they don't come right by tomorrow morning, I'm willing to run through the pain!

And there's the dreaded routine I need to go through early on race morning. I'll have to get up early (maybe around 5:00 am), have a good breakfast, go to the toilet, do some stretching and warm-ups, ensure I have everything in my bag to carry to the start line (at the moment I just realised I needed to buy Vaseline!!!), and make sure I wear my timing chip around my ankle and double knot my shoelaces. With my current pair of shoes, I've had many problems with shoelaces becoming untied during a run. Things like an untied shoe lace, or the urge to go to the toilet in the middle of a long race, is something that every runner dreads.

So there's the logistical headache and other anxieties that runners need to contend with, some more so than others.

My goal is to run under 90 minutes in the Reading Half Marathon. My personal best is 1:36:40, which means I need to run 18 seconds per km faster than last year to reach my goal. With regards to my training preparation for this event, I have had 16 weeks, 48 sessions, and ran approximately 570 km. The training volume was slightly higher than last year's preparation where I logged around 450 km. Overall, my preparation hasn't been perfect; there have been missed sessions and bad days that I'd rather forget. I got sick during the taper period, which took out half of my planned sessions. But I'm feeling good, and I feel that I can beat my time from last year. The things that I have got going for me this year are: increased mileage, more training experience, more race experience, knowing the course really well, extra motivation with regards to breaking three hours in a marathon, and the "extra" expectation to do well now that a lot of people know my sporting goals and dreams. 90 minutes is not going to equate to a sub-3:00:00 marathon time, but it's the first step in the right direction.

I'm really excited about tomorrow, and I know that the Reading Half Marathon will deliver in terms of atmosphere and crowd support. Today being the 20th March, 2010, it's been 6 months since I last ran a race (the Berlin Marathon in September) so I'm keen to get out there and run as hard as I can. The extra adrenaline from racing will carry me through. I know a few friends in Reading so hopefully they'll come out and support me and the other 18000+ runners pounding the Reading streets.

On a final note, I've just learned how to tweet from my Nokia 3310 mobile phone (an old school mobile, but I still love it). If you want to follow real time updates from the race, you can follow me on Twitter! I'll try to tweet as soon as I can from the finish line, but I definitely won't be tweeting during the race itself. Tweeting during a race sounds like a great idea, but I'm going to put 100% into my run and will happily concentrate on the running instead of the tweeting.

I'll most likely be buggered after tomorrow's race and would rather be sleeping instead of typing on a laptop, but as a means of showing my commitment, you'll still get a comprehensive race report and Training Week 16 Recap on this blog by the end of tomorrow, I promise!

Wish me luck,

Aaron