Four Days 'til Liftoff

The Bidwell Classic Half Marathon is in four days.  This will the 35th running of this 13.1 mile race, but for me it's a first.  My first half marathon, my first race over 10K, and my first race of 2011.

Right now I am tapering--that's runner lingo for giving my legs a rest by running shorter distances the two weeks before the race.  For the next four days, my focus is primarily resting my legs and fueling up my muscles.  I figure it's a lot like topping off the fuel tanks on the space shuttle before lift-off.

Of course, I'll not being reaching space worthy speeds.  While my official goal has always been to just finish the race, I have trained around a goal time of 2 hours.  That works out to running each mile in 9 minutes and 9 seconds. 

My next goal is to complete the race with negative splits.  In short, I want to run the second half of the race faster than the first.  For me that means I really need to chill out at the starting line.  I hope to use the first mile to gradually build up to my goal pace.  The next four miles, I'd like to hover right around 9:15 minute miles.  The next five miles, I might see if I can speed up to a 9:05 minute mile, and then I'd like to do the last 3.1 miles right around a 9 minute mile. 

They've studied this in marathons and found that only 10% of runners actually do a negative split.  Hopefully, I can pull back enough at the start to be in the minority of runners who conserve enegy for the end.