EZ Runnin' and a Morning Nap

Well, this is a funny story. I was in charge of getting the coolers to the top of Bonnell this morning for those not doing the 10 mile race tomorrow. They started their run at 6:00am, so I needed to get the coolers up there by 6:30am or so. No problem there, and I was done with that and all the way down to RunTex by 6:45am. I had an hour to kill before my scheduled 7:45am easy 4 miler with the Distance Challenge people, so I pulled the car around to a quiet spot, turned the radio down to quiet classical music, and caught some ZZZZZZZ's. I set a timer to beep at me after 45 minutes so I wouldn't miss the scheduled run. No problem...

The timer went off as planned, and I peeked at the clock. Still had 15 minutes, so I figured I'd close my eyes just for a minute more. I think you see where this story is going. I snapped awake shortly after that, and it was 7:52am. Oops! Missed 'em again! I climbed out of the car, and after a short walk, I felt awake enough to start jogging along. I didn't know which direction the troops went, but I figured they went out on the trail. I decided to cruise along and would turn around when I met up with them on their way back.

Well, that was a good plan, but it turns out they went a different direction. I turned around about where Woodie plays guitar at Point Neff, and headed back. I was feeling fine, just sort of embarrassed about snoozing away this morning. As I reached the 1/2 mile to go mark, Amy came running onto the trail from the Pfluger bridge. I joined up with her for the last short bit of the run, and ended up with a very modest 2.84 miles, average pace 9:00/mile. It was just enough to break a sweat so that stretching would be beneficial.

Stretching was weird without all the Chicago people, who were doing their last pre-marathon jog up in the Windy City at that same time. I felt fine after all the stretching, and I'm sort of excited about the race tomorrow.

Race Goals for the Girl Scout 10 Miler:
1. Distance Challenge 10 Miler PB: 1:22:00 (8:12/mile) set last year at Pervasive on a much tougher course. This should happen pretty much automatically.
2. Next Round Number: 1:20:00 (8:00/mile). I ran half marathons at faster paces than this in the last 6 months, but it's been a while.
3. Stretch Goal: 1:19:00 (7:54/mile), more or less Indy Mini Marathon PR pace from May 2006.

I'd also like to do a smooth negative split on this full out and back course. It will be strange not knowing the course ahead of time, but I'm just going to have to get over that. Full report to follow the race...