Did I Forget to Mention I'm Running My First Half?!

It's now been 9 days since my first big race, The Cherry Blossom 10-miler.  My coaches tell me that it would be normal to now be experiencing the "post-race blues".  But I'm not, and guess why?  I have another, bigger, race in 12 days!  I am running the Nike Women's Half Marathon and I can't believe how close it is already.

Last year when I was planning my race calendar, Nike was my goal race.  I wanted to run a half marathon and it seemed like the perfect choice.  However, I didn't get in through the lottery (there is a lot of demand for those post-race Tiffany necklaces, apparently).  I adjusted my plan and Cherry Blossom became my goal race.

If you've been reading my blog, you know that I trained for Cherry Blossom with Potomac River Running (=PR=).  About six weeks ago, I found out that I could get a bib for Nike through =PR=.  I did a lot of soul-searching before adding the extra challenge to my training, and ultimately decided to just make the leap and go for it.  Coach Shannon tweaked my training schedule to accommodate both races.

I haven't mentioned this exciting development because I wanted to stay focused on Cherry Blossom and documenting my experiences with training for it and running the race.  But now I have fully turned my attention to the next challenge at hand, and I'm starting to work out the race day details like where are the water stops and when am I going to have my GUs?

In some ways running Cherry Blossom has helped prepare me for Nike.  The middle miles of the Nike course are very similar to the Cherry Blossom course, so parts of the race will be familiar.  As a bonus for me, Nike is supposed to have more entertainment along the course than Cherry Blossom had.  It also doesn't have the stringent time-limit that Cherry Blossom had. 

I'm looking forward to continuing to think through the logistics of Nike, and what lessons I can bring with me from Cherry Blossom!