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Milton, Ontario, Canada

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Milton Half Marathon Race Goals!

Well, the 2013 edition of the Milton Half Marathon has been a whirlwind for me, for sure! Originally, I approached the organizers about being a pacer in the race. I thought it would be a perfect way to give back and still run in my town, along my training roads. Well, I was too late and they already had lined up all the pacers needed at the times I was willing to commit to (1:55, 2:00).

Fast forward to the middle of August - about a month away from race day, and I get an email from the organizer asking if I was still interested in the 2:00 continuous pacing job!  I jumped at the chance and was very excited to be able to give back. In the meantime, I paced the Midsummer Night's 30k run and started to work on constancy at the 5:41/km pace I would need to guild people to that 2:00 finish.

Then I got the email. The one that told me that I was not the pacer.

So what's a girl to do? I'm not ready yet to commit to going after the fall half goal of 1:45. I have six more weeks to get ready for that both physically and mentally.

But, I feel like I'm close.

I want to have a challenging race because, well... I've done an "easy" race already this summer.

I want to run alone. Just me and my thoughts (and likely my playlist).

So, the goal for the Milton Half Marathon will be

1:49:00 or less!

That will give me a nice PB and tell me how ready I really am for Scotia.

My plan (and this is where the or less part comes in), is to start at a 5:10/km pace and run that until after I pass by my family at 12.5(ish) km. At that point, I'll do my first evaluation and see if I can drop the pace a bit, maybe to 5:08 or 5:07. From there, I'll run until I get to the DailyMile cheering section at 16.5km and then look to drop the pace down a bit more. When I get around the final Tupper loop and head back over Thompson road toward the last 3km and the finish, I will be targeting splits under 5:00, with the hope that the final adrenalin push will be enough to get me up the underpass hill right at the end and turning onto Main Street with legs a'churning.

Or, as Doc Hudson tells McQueen on the last lap of the Piston Cup (yes, that IS Fergus' favorite movie right now):

 Drive her in deep, and hope she sticks

I'm really looking forward to this one! See you on the flip side.

4 comments:

  1. Sounds like a great plan Nicole. I'm feeling so tired this week not sure what to set for a goal or what to expect. Will have to wait and see!

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  2. I can't wait to see how you do!! Good luck.

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  3. You can totally do a 1:49. You've been training hard and you know the course well. Good luck! See you at the finish line

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  4. Good luck! I know you can do it!

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