13.1, here I come!

As you may have gathered from my last post, I've spent the past few months gearing up for a half marathon. I've raced the half a few times in the past, but I've yet to focus my training on one until now. Unlike my previous attempts at this distance, where I went into the race off to 10k training or just hoping to win some prize money, this time around I mean business.

Where am I racing, you ask? Well, I'll give you a hint - I'm currently sitting in a coffee shop in Cleveland, so you can safely surmise that I'm not racing the USA Half Champs in Houston tomorrow. I've raced many a US championship and know what to expect at a big race like that. For my upcoming half marathon, I'm looking for something a little more low key, a little more fun than fast, a little more familiar...

...so, I'll be racing the Davis Stampede in my hometown of Davis, California!

What better place to race than the streets where I learned to run joyfully? With friends and family cheering me on along familiar roads where I've logged many a mile, I think it'll be a great place to kick off my 2014 campaign!

My good friend Drew (a teammate at Davis High and and UC Davis) will be helping out with pacing duties, keeping me honest and hopefully holding sub-5:50 pace. Fellow running friends, feel free to join us! :)

So, I'll be lacing up my flats on February 9th back home in Davis. Til then, I've got a few more long runs to log here in snowy Cleveland...
Best of luck to everyone racing the USA Half Champs in Houston tomorrow, especially my running buds Nicole Camp and Steph Dinius!!

A big race on the horizon...!

2014 started off a bit unexpectedly -- on January 1, instead of boarding a plane home to Cleveland, I found myself stuck in California due to weather-related flight cancelations. As the Polar Vortex ravaged the Midwest and snow and cold canceled every flight I tried to get on, I was stranded (yes, how rough) in warm, sunny CA. Thank goodness I can work remotely, since I ended up in California for another week!

The extra week spent in warm weather was just the ticket for my running. While California experienced record highs, I ran some solid workouts that I would have otherwise had to do on the treadmill -- dreadmill -- back in bitterly cold Cleveland. I rocked some mile repeats, ran my longest/fastest long run ever, and rebuilt my confidence to boot!

Now I'm back in Ohio and thankfully the weather hasn't been too punishing yet. Since things have been going well, the game plan is to race a half marathon in the coming weeks and use it and the past few months of higher-volume workouts to kickstart my track season. Kinda like Lauren Fleshman running the NYC Marathon to get faster in the 5k, or all the ladies who ran the 2012 Marathon Olympic Trials in January and then came back to kick a** on the track later that spring. Here's to hoping that half marathon training yields a 10k PR for me!

Hopefully it'll also yield some much-needed mental fortitude. Because after racing 13.1 miles, surely 6.2 miles on the track can't seem that bad. The mental strength that I've been working on while training for the half will serve me well during those last 9 laps on the track that have gotten the better of me more times than I'd like to admit.

So I'm racing a half in just a few short weeks! I'm still a little nervous... I'm in the process of wrapping my head around the idea of focusing -- and staying mentally tough -- for 75 minutes (maybe 76 minutes, but hopefully no longer than that!). Thankfully I have a few more long runs and long tempos left to practice positive thoughts.

Which half am I running, you ask? That's on the down-low for now... but I'll spill the beans later this week - stay tuned!