Clean bill of health

I went to my chiropractor today and the deep tissue massage didn't make me growl profanities at him so he pronounced me cured and told me not to come back for a month unless it started bugging me.

My clean bill of health is just in time for the Scholastic Challenge 5k at 0730 tomorrow morning. Last year at this race I went out strong with IronTim and the Bionic Woman in 6:05, hung in through two at a then PR 12:17 and crashed ten steps later. I staggered across the finish with a 6:33 final mile and a bad taste in my mouth as Tim and BW had run sub-19:10. This year BW is enjoying some post-Boston Marathon fitness and has already cranked a 5:40 mile in her only race since running the Marathon. She told me a week ago that she thinks she's in the best shape she's been in since graduating from SIUC. I thought, "Oh shit. Here comes another nine straight losses."

When I ran into IronTim at Passavant he told me that he has felt positively mortal since running the Country Music Marathon in April. I never count Tim out but this year I'm not in his age group. I'm still in the 25-29 age group for the Points Series but Tim and I are getting our asses handed to us by a guy named Bernie. Bernie is out-pointing us because he's run all five Points races this year to my two and Tim's one. Luckily for us they count your nine best races and there are still ten races left in the Series. I don't really care too much this year but it would be nice to defend my title.

Point Series aside, I am nervous about this race for a number of reasons. The biggest reason is that I haven't run any speed work since May 31st, if you count my DNF at Passavant. If you Don't count Passavant (I'm not counting it) I haven't done any speed since the week of May 12 - 18 where I did 1.5 miles in 9:32 and a mile in 6:19 that Tuesday and ran the Race to Feed Hungry Children in 20:12 and vomited (I counted the vomiting as an ab workout) that Saturday.

The other reason I'm nervous is because I haven't run more that 20 miles a week in over a month. I know that you don't need to run ultra-long miles to run a 5k but six mile long runs are about all I've been able manage for the last six weeks or so. I'm glad tomorrow isn't a 10k or I'd be toast.

The plan tomorrow is to go out safe. Safe can probably be defined as 6:10 to 6:20. Hopefully that will feel pretty good and I can get through two in the neighborhood of 12:30 or faster. During my runs this week I have been visualizing the last mile of the race as we come over the bridge and I visualize myself passing people and finishing strong. I also have been visualizing 18:40 on my watch as I hit mile three and 19:15 as a finishing time. If I can run that fast I'll be ecstatic. If I feel like crap from the gun then I'll be happy to just break 20:00 and place in my new age group.

All that is left now is to hydrate and go to bed.