Half Marathon Goals

This upcoming Sunday is the Arizona Distance Classic, aka the Oro Valley Half. Brandon, Alexis and I will be tackling 13.1 miles as a trio. Or, maybe they are running as a couple and I'm the third wheel. Either way, we will still run 13.1 miles!

I read in some running magazine or book that you should set three goals for every race you run. The first goal being just to finish the race feeling somewhat good. The second goal is a finishing time that you think is doable even if everything doesn't go perfect. The third goal is what you think your best time could be if everything goes perfectly.

So, here are my goals.

1. Finish! I will be happy with simply finishing 13.1 miles. That's a long way for anyone to go on their own two feet. Back when I was working, I didn't even drive that far to the office everyday!

2. Finish around 2h10m. That would mean running around 10 minute miles. I know I can run faster than this, BUT, the course has some long, slow hills. If we end up taking the hills too fast, we will kill our legs and be burnt out by the halfway point.

3. Finish under 2hrs. When Alexis and I ran the Tucson Half in December we finished just under 2hrs (really, barely under 2hrs...less than 30 seconds to spare!!). I feel like the Tucson half is a much easier course, it's almost all downhill! Not the case with the OV half.

Up until today I was not feeling confident about this half marathon at all! The last 2 long runs we've done have been pretty horrible feeling, and at a pretty slow pace. I'm thinking we were just too tired, and had been running too much. I only ran 10 miles last week (compared with almost 24 the week before), and this week I'm only going to run about 6. Hopefully the extra rest will be good for us! Tonight I ran on the treadmill and for the first time in awhile I actually felt good. And, for a lot of the run I was at an 8:30 or even faster pace. So, that gives me confidence that there's hope for goals #2 and 3!

My prediction is that we will finish somewhere in between 2hrs and 2hr10min. If not, oh well!