Pre-race nerves…

There are only 4 days between me and the Gettysburg Marathon.  At the moment I am feeling more nervous than excited.  If it wasn't a hilly race, I could probably reverse that statement.  Training has gone really well, but I just am not as confident about my hill running as I would like to be. 

I think some of the nerves are because I do not know exactly what to expect.  The elevation map on the website is not detailed enough to get a sense of how the hills are, and the comments from last year’s course say it is difficult and that the map is deceptive.  The second half of the course has been changed from last year to make it faster and less hilly, but that still leaves a lot of room for scary levels of hilliness.

The other scary thing is how few spectators there will probably be.  There are only 3 places they mark for spectators, at miles 5, 13, and 25.  Personally, I don’t need spectators as much in the first half of the race; it’s the second half where they make so much more of a difference. 

The other thing is that this is my first race I’ve traveled for.  I’ve usually run whatever seems fun in the DC area from 5K to marathon.  This is my first time starting a race not from home.  Luckily I’ll be seeing and staying with a friend…so maybe I should just focus on the excitement of seeing her and ignore the prerace nerves…

The weather has been all over the place lately.  I haven’t started really checking the weather for Sunday yet, but I’m just going to hope that it isn’t too cold or too warm. 

So my goal for this race, given the hills, is the same goal I had for MCM, to finish under 4:30.  If this were a more flat race, I might be bold enough to shoot for a 4:15 marathon.  I think Megan and I are going to keep a good conservative pace over the first, and hillier, half, and then start picking it up some depending on how I feel…and by conservative I mean closer to a 4:30 pace than a 4:15 pace.    This would not normally be my marathon strategy, but I think it might be the best approach for this race.