Feth an' Begorrah!

What a crazy couple of weeks it's been! I know I haven't posted much, but between being totally slammed at work because a co-worker is retiring and we're still training two newbies who don't have all their clearances yet (meaning all the work is on ME now), and having lost my mind, thinking I could lump two months' worth of 10k training into two weeks so I can run this effing race I signed up for back in DECEMBER...I just really haven't had much time to blog, or keep up with social media at all.  Pretty much all my accounts look like they've been abandoned, and the sound of crickets is overwhelming in some cases.  I have tried as much as I could to at least jump on facebook and like posts here and there to let folks know I'm still kicking, but it's not like normal, for sure.

Regardless...I've done my best to prep as well as I can for my race on Saturday without overdoing anything and messing myself up to the point of injury. Keith keeps telling me he thinks I should just throw in the towel and consider my entry fee a donation to the cause (all proceeds go to a wonderful local charity), but I've worked way too hard to do that.  I'm not looking for a PR on this race, although it wouldn't be hard to beat my 'official' one from when I ran the Peachtree back in '09. At this stage of the game, my goal is to finish the damn thing...and finish strong.  After my last training run, I believe I'll be able to do that much, at least.

My training has been going pretty well, aside from some residual body aches and stiffness (which I'd probably have at any rate).  My pace sucks cookies right now, I've lost about 2 min/mile since the fall, and am down to praying I can get in the 13:00's.  That's pretty bad, I know...but at my age, that's what happens when you go two months without running. You lose it pretty quickly.

I was pretty damned happy with my last run on Tuesday. I pushed myself to go the entire distance, regardless of my speed, and I did make it.  I kept telling myself that no matter how slow I ran, as long as I finished the run, I'd be happy...and I would use THIS data to try to beat on Saturday, rather than push to beat my old PR of 1:28:22.

Haha.... turns out I was running so slow back then, this crappy training run even beat it.  So if I DO manage to pull a rabbit out of a hat on Saturday and beat this run...or even match it....I'll automatically have a PR!  Either way, though, it will be a great benchmark for me to use to measure my progress against, later in the year.

Today will be my last training run. I'm planning on doing a very easy four miles, and then taking tomorrow to rest before the race on Saturday.  I have to admit...I'm both dreading it, and looking forward to it at the same time, but I'm pretty sure at this stage I'm looking forward to it more.  It should be cool and cloudy, but I'm praying the rain holds off until later in the day, if it rains at all. Sounds like good conditions for a nice run.  Guess we'll see.

In the meantime, I'm working a bit of OT tonight, and will head home after my run to celebrate what's left of St. Patty's Day with Keith.  We both have Irish roots, even if we don't talk about it as much as we do about the Scottish side.  I'm just hoping the Luck o' the Irish is with me this weekend.  If y'all go out and celebrate tonight, make sure and stay safe...they's crazy folks out there!