One week

In exactly one week, I will be landing in San Francisco to begin my Napa Valley Ragnar adventure!  I am so excited and part of me still cannot believe it is happening.  It seems like it was just yesterday that I was submitting my video for the Another Mother Runner contest and now here we are, just a week away from the race!  As a side note, Dimity and Sarah are running some amazing giveaways this week during the "Back to School 5K", so pop on over to the Another Mother Runner website and check it out.  The giveaways are back to school themed and there are some amazing, drool worthy prizes being given away each day to multiple winners.

I took today as another rest day, per the nurse practitioners advice from yesterday, and I am feeling somewhat better thankfully.  Hopefully this virus will be done in a few days!

I think I mentioned a few weeks ago that we received our start time for the race, which is 5:30 a.m. next Friday, and that I was going to enlist Matt's mathematical skills to help me estimate the start times for each of my legs.  Fortunately, I have some math-y Ragnar teammates, too, because they were able to determine our approximate start times.  This is, of course, just an approximation, but my legs should be roughly as follows:

1. Begin at 10:47 a.m. on Friday, ending at 12:03 p.m.
2. Begin at 12:09 a.m. on Saturday, ending at 1:16 a.m.
3. Begin at 10:56 a.m. on Saturday, ending at 11:26 a.m. 

It seems so official writing that down!  It helps me to visualize the race, though, too.  I was listening to one of the Another Mother Runner podcasts on my run Monday night and they were talking to the two women "cadets" they are coaching for the Saucony 26 strong program.  One of the things they discussed was visualizing yourself on race day as you train for a big race, or any race, really.  I thought it was a great idea and when I really stopped to think about it, I do that much more than I realized.  Every time I've run hill repeats this summer or up a hill in general, I imagine what it will be like to run the hills in northern California.  I imagine what it will be like at the exchange points and I definitely visualize what it will be like on my night leg.  Visualizing your race can also be a really great positive motivator if you happen to have a difficult run, and we all have those days! 

Do you visualize yourself on race day as you train?  

"One day she decided to stop letting fear hold her back and chose to live bravely.  From then on, she flew."