Ready to rock!

During my 7k run yesterday morning it hit me, a week from now I'll be in Georgia running a half marathon and trying to qualify for the NYC Marathon!

As I've noted in previous posts, I'll need to run the 21.1k distance in 1 hour and 30 minutes or less to qualify. My coach Ian has set a goal time of 1:28:30. As I've also mentioned before, that's a full six minutes faster than any other half marathon I've ever run.

My friend David asked me the other day, "How will you do it?"

A great question. I mulled it over as I ran. I thought about previous, successful races and tried to figure out why I had sometimes achieved my goals, while other times I had failed. What was common to those good performances? What is required for anyone to be successful in a race?

Well first is setting a realistic goal. I believe goals should be challenging, ones that will test your physical and mental limits, but not something that you have no chance of achieving. A goal requires some thought and can be developed based on previous results/performances. But it doesn't always have to be time-based. It can be as simple as just running your first race or finishing a distance that you've never been able to complete before.

When I've had success in the past I believe it all started with a realistic goal. This time around I believed running under 1 hour and 30 minutes was within my capabilities. And the more I think and write about the goal time Ian has set for me, the more I believe it is possible. It will test me, but it's achievable.

The second important ingredient for a successful race is developing a training plan that will properly prepare you. Depending on the race distance and/or goal, an ideal plan should include a good mix of speed, tempo and endurance runs. It should also build mileage slowly and proportionately each week to help avoid injury.

I can say with certainty that my past race successes have come as a result of a well thought out and focussed training plan. I hired Ian for his expertise and experience to develop a plan that would increase my speed and build the required strength/stamina I'll need over a half marathon distance too achieve my goal. I believe that's exactly what I got from him.

Consistent training is critical to race-day success. You can have the best training plan in the world, but if you don't follow it, skip days or take shortcuts you're setting yourself up for failure. Also key to training is battling through those training runs that are difficult, where you  may not feel that great physically or mentally you're struggling. They build character and will pay dividends during a race, because no matter the distance, you're bound to feel some discomfort or hit the "wall" at some point. Having fought through pain in training will be invaluable during your race.

Over the last 9 weeks I've only missed 3 days of training. I've been able to hit the paces and complete all the distances Ian set for me, including fighting through a couple of difficult runs (see my "No Fun!" post for an example). So I'm confident I'm physically ready for next week.

Developing a race strategy and sticking to it is also an important factor to race-day success. Your strategy can be as simple as making sure you don't start too fast, drinking enough fluid throughout the race or staying with a pace group. Whatever your strategy is stick to it.

My strategy will be to run a fairly consistent pace throughout the race and make sure I don't start out too fast, which could lead to me running out of gas later in the race. Ian has recommended I keep my pace between 4 minutes and 10 seconds and 4 minutes and 15 seconds per kilometre and try to run an even-split race - meaning I'll cover the first half of the race in the same amount of time as the second half.

As I ran and thought about all these things - the time, effort and planning I've put in over the last 9 weeks, combined with the advice and support I've received from Ian - a feeling of confidence came over me, one I hadn't felt since just before the Hamilton Marathon in November of 2009 where I ran a PR of 3:24:36 to qualify for Boston.

So to answer David's question, the last 9 weeks have been the dress rehearsal, now all that remains is getting out there on the 15th and performing.

I'm ready and looking forward to the challenge!