Call the POH-LEECE! (and Goals!)

somebody, quick! That girl is speeding! NOT....

Rather, someone should call me in on charges of impersonating a runner. sheesh. I did manage to get meself up out of bed this morning, and out into the chilly air (long pants and a long-sleeved tee required, thank you!). But, dang, as "fast" as I was on Sunday afternoon (at least for me), well, that's how SLOW I was this morning. Check out these blazing splits:

Mile 1 -- 11:25
Mile 2 -- 11:02
Mile 3 -- 10:52

So, yeah, I was anything but speedy today. And I felt fine. I just wasn't going fast. So any delusions of grandeur I was entertaining about possibly hitting 5:00:00 on Sunday just went "POOF" into thin, cold air. Bah.

OK, it's time to put the goals down in writing and out in the ether outside my head. I've really not thought about these too much (honest!). There's lots of reasons for that -- the biggest contributor is really that for the first part of this year I was so out of my groove because of work and stress and work. Putting on 15 pounds over my White Rock starting-line weight really played a number on me physically, but mostly mentally. I'm down from my mid-summer highest weight and have regained most of my fitness, but I've still not been able to shake the last 6-7 pounds to get back where I was when I toed the starting line in early December. We're not even going to talk about MCM, because that will just make me sad, to realize that I've slipped so much from a point where I was really at my leanest and meanest. But I'm as ready as I'm going to be, so we'll make the most of it.

I'm just glad that I was able to get back on board with the training and get the mileage in to be able to make it to the next race. Actually, I was reviewing my logs for this training cycle (after a comment I posted on Ben's site made me realize that I'm a bit OCD about them...), and I counted up the weeks, and I've put in just a bit more than 600 miles since May 1. That's about 100 miles a month, which is not particularly high, but I've been fairly consistent at least in that i've not gone more than 2 days in a rows without running some amount. I've certainly not been on the every day streak that I was before leaving for Disney last summer (again, leanest and meanest), but I've certainly not been slacking as much as I thought I was.

I've gotten slower this year, probably by about 5 percent, which is to be expected somewhat since I'm carrying about about 5 percent more weight than I was last year. But my 20-mile time this year was promising, as was my condition at the end of that sucker. So, all this blather and nonsense is just a long-winded way to say:

Dream Goal: 5:00 -- scientifically and mathematically possible if I maintain a bit faster than my 20-miler pace throughout; would be a PR by 25 minutes. So NOT going to happen, but if it did, I'd be doing a happy dance all the rest of the day/week/year.
Realistic Goal: 5:24 -- last year's White Rock chip time was 5:25; I'll take anything less as a PR; would need to maintain a pace of 12:20/mile, including walk breaks.
Bare Minimum Goal: 5:33 -- that's a 12:42/mile pace. I should be able to do that unless my feet fall off. Any slower and it would be my slowest 'thon to date.

I clocked a 5:33 at MCM, but that's because I was being all tourista during the race and snapping pix, enjoying the spectacle. Not that I won't enjoy the race and the scenery this weekend, but I dont' think Waco, Texas has as much to gawk at as Washington, DC.

so there. This post is subject to vaporize and self-destruct at any time if I come to my senses.