Leading Up To 13.1

As I mentioned in Monday's earlier post, I have a half-marathon coming up. I'm very excited for it, and it almost seems like it's not really happening. But of course, on Sunday I will hit the streets of Redlands with hundreds (thousands maybe?) of other runners, trying to conquer the 13.1 monster.

I have a plan for the race, which I will share later this week, but I have a plan for the week leading up to the race itself and I figured I might as well write it down to formulate my ideas.

Here are the miles I have planned for the week:

Monday: Rest
Tuesday: 3 (at the gym)
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: 4-5 (at Mt. Rubidoux)
Friday: 3-4 (at the gym)
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: RACE!!

I checked various training plans, both online and in books I have, and they all suggested about three runs during the week and about 9-12 total miles. I don't want to try and hit 31-plus miles this week as I have been for the last however many weeks. I'm still averaging more than 30 miles per week for the year but I just need to ease off the pedal a bit.

The hardest part will be not running more than 3-4 miles. Tuesday I will only have time for three miles so that won't be too tough but the other days I know I will want to keep running.

All the plans included some sort of workout, be it tempo, intervals or whatever. So I figured I'd run Mt. Rubidoux and call that a workout run. I'm going to push myself on there like I usually do, but the other runs I'm just going to run easy miles.

I don't want to feel like I'm crusing into the race but in some ways I think that's what you have to do. If you run, then you know how hard it is sometimes to just stop at distances when you'd normally be picking up the pace. But all that is also part of the plan. Come Sunday, I know my legs will be yearning to run a long distance and I'm not going to quell that feeling.