I am shooting for a half marathon PR next Saturday at the Timberlake Half Marathon. This is a small race about an hour and a half from my home in Pensacola.
This race was chosen for a few different reasons.
- It is about the right amount of time after my marathon
- I can play off my marathon training
- It is close to home
- I happen to be home that weekend
I am hoping to work from my marathon training. Since it is run 4 weeks after my marathon I think it is far enough away not to be affected negatively from the Indianapolis race. But it is still close enough that all the miles I put in for training for the marathon will be to my favor for this shorter race.
I will be able to easily drive to the race on race day. I don’t have to get a hotel the night before. Though it means I will need to get good sleep a couple of days leading up to the race. That may be a bit tricky since I will have very late nights from Saturday (last night) until Wednesday. I will drive from Knoxville, TN to Pensacola, FL on Thursday, but can take a nice long nap on Thursday if I need and sleep late Friday morning if I can.
The goal is a 2 hour finish. That is a very ambitious goal. My current half marathon PR is 2:16:23, however, I ran 2:11:00 during the first half of my marathon. Therefore, I am just shaving 11 minutes off my time in Indianapolis.
This is an out and back course. I will be able to see how I am doing at the half way point. I plan to run a consistent pace (9:10 per mile) from start to finish. However, I would like to run a negative split and leave it all on the course. This will be my first real “race” in the half marathon distance. I have never tried to run it fast with anticipated pain following the race. This time I expect to hurt for several days after this race.