Good, good, good, good eleven

Finish that lyric, because there's only 11 more days until the marathon! Woooooooooooo.  A far cry from October's marathon, I'm actually excited about this one.  I go to bed thinking about how awesome it's going to be when I break the 4 hour mark.  Maybe I'm getting too far ahead of myself, but I'd rather be excited about it than indifferent, because we saw what indifference did last time.  Bottom line is 4 hours or not, I'm pumped to be running Baton Rouge again.  Sure, my race day logistics are still being worked out, but hopefully I'll have a handle on that by Friday.  Here's the main problem.  Usually I carry a 24 oz water bottle with hand strap.  As you might imagine, it gets tiresome having your hands full for an entire marathon.  So, I thought about changing over to a hydration belt.  Unfortunately I'm having the terrible problem of the belt riding up and moving around while I'm running.  To the point where I had to stop a mile in to my run today to adjust the entire thing to it's smallest point and anchor it down behind the phone pouch I was carrying in my waistband. Is this a common problem with the hydration belts? My next test is going to be to safety pin the belt to my waistband and see if that solves all problems.  Unfortunately, there's a good chance I"m going to be running in shorts and I really don't want to worry about the weight of the belt pulling my shorts down. 

 How does one go about fixing this problem? I really wanted to get rid of the hand-held water bottle, but it seems like the best way to stay hydrated and have the least amount of gear issues at the same time.  Now some people may say to just leave the water bottle behind and only use the water stops on the course, but it's not for the water, it's for the Tailwind.  Maybe I'm using it as a crutch, but much like Dumbo and his feather, I need this Tailwind to fly.  Sure, in the end, Dumbo didn't NEED the feather, but this is not the race I want to learn that in. So even though I intend to use the water stops along the way, I need something to carry my Tailwind in as well.  Ideally, I'd have someone hold onto the bottle and pick it up at the halfway mark, but I don't want other people to have to worry about being in a certain place at a certain time.  Putting my time goal stress onto another person isn't fair.  I'm going to give the safety pin trick a try and if that doesn't work, then maybe I will just go back to hand-held.  As far as Camelbak backpacks go, I already spent a fair amount on this hydration belt, so I don't want to go out and buy another item that may end up with the same problem anyways.  Hopefully the safety pins will work and if it's really necessary, I can run in capris instead of shorts, as long as the weather doesn't go above 65 that day.  

Other than the gear issues, the Gibbs training method has been completed, so now it's going to be a wait and see kind of game.  I'm really banking on running my half as fast as I have been running them lately, which will give me slightly more wiggle room for the other half.  I don't want to bust through the first half like a maniac, but I feel like if I take the first half slow, I won't speed up for the second half.  I'll still feel great running, but my four hour mark would be left behind, which is not what I want.  I know, I know, that's 100% not the proper way to run a marathon, but at this point, being number 5, I might as well stick with what I know.  Last time I didn't run through my first half real quick, I ended up at a 5 hour marathon, so who's to say what's really the right approach here anyways? On that note, I'll end with this picture of a beautiful champion who made a great point that I feel is extremely relevant to my thoughts right now. 

Playoffs Round Two!

Last Sunday the Pats played the Texans and, of course, won.  Was there ever any doubt really?  So this weekend, in fact, today, we are playing the Ravens. I expect to win again, but you never know.  A small part of me hopes that we don't because the growing trend with the Patriots seems to be, win all the games up to the Superbowl, and then lose the big one.  Twice in recent years they went to the Superbowl and lost to the Giants, so if they end up there again, they really need to break that streak.  Seriously, who else goes 18-0 and THEN loses? But, it's more than I could ever do, so I suppose I can't be to hard in my criticisms. The Bruins also had their home opener last night, so it's been a nice sports weekend all around.
This morning, as it is Sunday, I went for my regular 8:30 a.m. group run in Wakefield.  We have been slowly increasing the mileage each week, so today we did 5 miles. The time wasn't too bad either, just under 60 minutes.  I always feel like I'm running wicked slow, but then I check the time at the end, and it's pretty much on point with every other time I've run.  I don't know what it is about the lake that makes it feel so slow.   There is also a lot of wind today, which doesn't help.  The weather itself if fairly nice, mid-40s and sunny, but the wind is so fierce that it makes it much colder than it really is.  I do enjoy the lack of snow, but I also hate that it seems like it's not January.  When there's snow on the ground and it's 20 degrees, you know that it's the middle of winter and that Spring is coming.  When the weather pretends it's already Spring, it throws everything off.  I want to see baseball games and go out in short-sleeves, but then I remember that it's only January and there's still two months until baseball even starts again!
But anyways, back to the running.  A few posts ago I mentioned the Great Stew Chase,  the 15K in Lynn.  Some of us had discussed signing up and when we were going to do it.  We had settled on waiting until the day off and seeing what the weather was before committing to anything, because really, who wants to run in the snow?  However, it seems that one person forgot about this and ended up registering the other day. Then I felt bad so I registered for it too. I didn't want to leave one person alone to run the whole race. Even though she's much faster than I am and will probably end up far ahead of me anyways.  So, that's it.  I am officially registered for a 15K.  That's 4 miles more than I've run so far.  And probably at least 3 more than I'll be able to get in before the race.  Because the race is in 2 weeks.  Actually, it's on Superbowl Sunday. Which brings us back to the beginning of the post, which is, the Patriots better make it to the Superbowl.  If they can make it that far in their season, I can make it through a 15K.  Plus, after 6 miles, what's an extra 3 really?  I'm sure it will all be fine.  I'll let you know if it actually is though.