Peer pressured: I am now racing in 13 days!!

Sometimes the non-plan is the best plan.  Or at least that is what I am going to tell myself in 13 days anyway.  With a little bit of peer pressure from Flying Tomato, I have entered myself into the Atlanta Thanksgiving Half.


I have run countless half-marathons by myself and 4 full marathons with others, but this will be my first 'racing' half-marathon.  I have a personal PR, but since this will be 'official', I have will have my first official PR for this distance.

I'm not sweating making it to the finish line, but I know that I will not be racing my best given that I decided to do this so close to race day.  I have been training on exactly 0 hills lately so it could be a brutal morning.  But, whatevs, I just hope to have a fun time racing with my favorite running buddy.

We finally got to see each other after months of trying to get a free Thursday morning that worked for both of us.  I definitely needed an uplift in my running and I think it was good for him too after the NYC disappointment.  Getting excited about a race is something I apparently needed (more on that in a sec).  We had no pace goals or distance goals, we just chatted and ran and I pulled the plug at the 3 mile turnaround mark when I grew tired of slip-sliding on the icy Greenway.  It felt so great to run and talk--I was immediately refreshed by the whole experience.

I had been receiving emails from the Atlanta Half and contemplated running.  But I wasn't sure about my work schedule and how busy I would be this time of year in the world of retail.  I kind of forgot that normal retailers pick up a little bit, but that it isn't crazy busy like it was the week of Thanksgiving at Williams-Sonoma.  It occurred to me that I wouldn't be dreadfully exhausted come race day.  Just regular tired.  So when Tomato started trying to convince me to sign up, it took only a few hours to decide that this would be a good thing.

I told myself today that I would go for a run and if I felt really bad, I would give myself the okay not to sign up.  But good God, it was A-W-E-S-O-M-E!!!! I felt absolutely, ridiculously high on running.  A perfect fall day of crisp air and bright blue skies and my turnover was fast and powerful.  I felt so strong.  If I could bottle this feeling.... wow!  My first mile was in 7:24 and I kept cranking out a ferocious tempo pace after that.  5 miles at a 7:25 pace, yes please.  Needless to say, the endorphins took me straight to the half-marathon website when I got home....