Strategy Dinner and Mission Saturday

My Leukemia Lymphoma Society team in training event is rapidly approaching.  As of tomorrow I am only 3 weeks away from the Canyonlands Half-Marathon.  As the event is approaching the number of team-in-training events that are taking place are rapidly picking up.

This evening we had our Run Strategy Dinner at the Liquid Coffee House in Denver.  The purpose of this dinner was to assemble our entire team and talk through all strategies that we needed to follow to make our race days a success.  Our team captain Colin did a presentation of all the things to do and all the things not to do in the remaining 3 weeks before race day.  With tomorrow morning's run we will run the longest distance in preparation for our races.  After that, we are on a "taper" until the race day itself.  The taper is the time right before the race in which we give our bodies time to heal and relax before the race itself.  Tomorrow's run will stress our bodies the most at any point right besides race day itself.  After tomorrow - it's time for rest!

It is actually kind of funny to see all the people who you run with outside of their running clothes.  We are all used to seeing each other all bundled up to keep warm while we have run in the cold winter weather.  We are use to seeing each other with snot dripping from our noses and sweat pouring down our faces.  Tonight for a change we got to see each other looking normal and not all worn out from running.  That was definitely an interesting experience because it is actually hard to recognize some of the people.

Tomorrow's run is called our "Mission Day".  Before our run we will remember the people who we are running our races for and do some final discussion of race strategy.  Once we start our runs tomorrow we will run as close to the pace we hope to run on race day as possible.  Basically tomorrow is a dress rehearsal for our actual runs on race day.  The run will start early tomorrow.  Normally we start our runs at 8:30AM, tomorrow we will begin at 7:45AM because of the distances that we will cover.  I am one of the luckily ones in the fact that I will only run for 2 hours as I am only doing a half-marathon.  My teammates who are running the LA and Paris Marathons will run for 4 hours.  That is a lot of running!!

It was special to have today be our strategy day as I am running the race in memory of Patty.  Today would have been Patty's 47 birthday if she were still alive.  I am trying to figure out a way to run my race on March 19th with a photo of Patty with me.  It will motivate me and inspire me to run well.  Hopefully I can figure out a way to do that.

Not much else to say for the day.  Tomorrow is all about the run.  I am planning on actually doing more than 2 hours.  I think I am going to run for 2.5 hours and then hang around and welcome my teammates back as the come back from their 4 hour runs.  So much of the day will be spent doing that.  I think once I get home I am going to be tired, so it might be a good day for Zack and I just to hang around home.

I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

FYSRD!