It's the final countdown...

AAAAAHHHHHH 3 days to go! It is indeed.... the final countdown....

Okay I couldn't help myself, I've had that song in my head all morning :)

I haven't been very diligent about updating this the last few weeks, although I do think packing up my life and moving is a pretty decent excuse to put the blog on the backburner. The good news is that I have continued running throughout the chaos of life. In fact, I have already had a few beautiful runs in my new neighborhood!

Since moving to uptown, I've quickly become obsessed with the lake trails nearby. Albeit very crowded, they are still a gorgeous, well maintained, and easily accessible trail system.

I had an extremely successful 10 mile run early last week, and a (not quite as successful) 12-miler this Sunday.

10 miles June 3

12 miles June 8

I have no excuse for the tough 12 mile run besides my...
a. lack of hydration and
b. lack of preparation

The original plan was to do my 'long' run 2 weeks before race day, but as that was moving weekend.... the scheduling got a little discombobulated. Regardless.... I was able to finish the run (yippie!).

My original hope of blowing my previous half time out of the water (last spring was a 2hr 10min race) doesn't seem to be quite as realistic as I had originally thought. I am a little disappointed that I didn't push myself a harder these last 2 months, but hindsight is always very rosy. Life intervened, again, and the training had to be flexible as well.

All of that being said, I am definitely on track to at least match my previous run time... and come race day, I know I'll push myself much harder than I have been in training. The goal (fingers crossed) is still a sub-2hr time, but I guess we'll just have to wait and see!

I am pretty excited to be heading back to my hometown (Milwaukee) for this run, it'll be a great experience to be able to have family there to support me! I'm also stoked that I have a good friend running the same race (that's you Hanna Gichard!) and we have plans to carb load the night before :)

If everything goes as hoped this summer, I'll be running the Madison Mini-Marathon on August 16th as part of the M2 Challenge (http://www.madisonminimarathon.com/pages/top-nav/the-msup2-challenge.php).

Here is the route and info for this Saturday: http://rocknsolerun.com/. I'll post at least once more as the next few days tick away!

Wish me luck!!! :)