Welcome to Race Week!

As was the title of the email I received from the Baltimore Marathon yesterday. Like I could forget, but I still was overcome with both a feeling of excitement and an ohshit! feeling.

This will be my last pre-race blog post as I am outta here on Thursday sans lap top but will be doing some tweeting should anyone care to follow my mis-adventures across the coast (twitter feed is to the right of my blog).

I am still unsure as to how I am going to approach this race, and to be honest it will probably be a last minute decision made after my pre-race warm-up. I can usually get a good feel of how my body is going to cooperate by the way the warm-up goes. Not always, but most of the time.

I really have two options.

1 - I can start out with the 3:10 pace group and try to hang on. In all honesty, I've been under a bit of grand delusion that 7:15 pace is my marathon race pace. To be honest, it will be a pace that is slightly uncomfortable for me. On one hand, I may be able to hang on. I am a strong endurance runner and a lot of times the further I run, the better I feel. On the other hand, starting out too fast in a marathon can spell disaster i.e. major blow up.

2 - There is no 3:15 pace group. The next group is 3:20. So I can try to run between both groups. Keeping the 3:10 group in sight while making sure the 3:20 group isn't too close. I feel like I can comfortably run a 3:15 marathon pace (7:26 min/miles). So, I can try to run the first half at 3:15 pace then try to drop pace the second half. Although there would be a very small chance I would be able to drop pace that much to still hit 3:10. And there's also the chance 7:26 pace is actually more realistic to my current marathon abilities and I might not be able to pick it up at all.

And, maybe I do have a third option -

3- Just run and not over think everything.

I just don't want to leave anything out there and play it too safe, but I also don't want to blow up half way through the race because I've over estimated my abilities.

Anyway, I've signed up for runner tracking so that it auto-feeds my marathon splits (every 10K) to my Twitter account. You can follow me @erinruyle on Twitter to see my progress, or just stop by my blog if you wish and Twitter feeds are to the right. I was a little bit apprehensive about doing this, as I wasn't sure if I really wanted the entire Internet World to see my splits...however, maybe it will light more of a fire under my ass.

Also, FYI, last year apparently the tracking didn't work so (Mom) if you don't see anything come through don't automatically assume I am in a ditch somewhere in Baltimore.

I signed my mom and husband up to receive text message alerts  - no need to bombard everyone's else phones with my marathon splits. Sadly my race sherpa will not be traveling with me this time since he's in season with golf, but knowing he's still following me and cheering for virtually will help me out a lot (cheesy, I know).

Thankful for his confidence in me!

See ya on the flip side. Off to run Marathon #19 on Saturday. Race starts at 8 AM EST.