Workout notes: easy 2 mile walk on the old course; saw a running training group coming by.
I am reminded of what Michael Johnson (of 200 m and 400 m track fame) once said (paraphrasing): embrace the nervousness rather than deny it. If this weren’t important to you, you would not have trained so hard for it.
And these-a-days, it often goes like this:
Several weeks before: “there is no reason I can’t meet time goal X.” I am going to taper, go out there, be disciplined and really get after it.
A week before: compulsively check the weather forecast. The memories of past failures and pain comes back…”you know…thinking that I am going to make the times I did 15-20 years ago isn’t that realistic…”
Two days before…”ugh…I just hope that I finish before the course closes and that I stay out of the medical tent.”
So, the feelings are mixed. What is unknown is that I really don’t have a great feel for my current abilities. Yes, not only am I a decade older but I no longer have the capacity to train the way that I once did. And when I walked marathons at a 12 minute pace, my typical 20 mile training pace was 13-13:30. So..this suggests a low 14 should be what I am capable of today. That is reality.
Life of an old goat 