All Better Now

Okay, after yesterday's worried whining about the state of my stiff and sore muscles, today's warmup run with the Gazelles before the stretching session has put my fears to rest. After a full rest day yesterday, and some ice/cold treatments, I felt fine this morning. We got underway at 8:00 am, on an overcast day in the high 40's, and we tooled along at 9:50 pace for just over 4 miles with Gilbert. I didn't have any problem getting underway, which was a welcome change from the last couple of runs. I was able to relax and chat with the folks as we ran along, and had fun. Afterwards, we did 5 strides to finish the loosening process, and then went over to stretch. The stretching felt good, as usual, and we were all in good humor. Tomorrow, we'll meet at 7:00 for a group warmup over the last mile or so of the race course, and then Gilbert wants us to do a full 15-20 minutes super easy jogging after the race is over. I'll have to see what my time pressures are before I go and do that. I may have to make my cooldown jogging on the way to the car to get going, in order to make it to the Governor's mansion for our classical guitar gig at his Christmas party at noon.

Decker Race Goals

Alright, using the three-part goal setting ritual that I've grown accustomed to, here's my goals for tomorrow's hilly 20k race:

Reasonable goal: 20k PR of 1:50:44 (8:56 pace)
Aggressive goal: 8:35 pace (1:46:45), which fits with Motive time
Crazy goal: 8:30 pace (1:45:29), next round pace number

I've usually run better at Decker than at Motive, and the race is shorter, by .7 miles, so along with the more rolling nature of the course, and absence of a truly steep hill like at Pervasive and Motive, these are a good group of goals. I'd also like to run the second half (last 6.43 miles) at a faster pace than the first half, and it would be nice if my last mile was among my fastest. I'm looking forward to it. Weather looks to be about perfect, temps in the low 50's.