To Run Or Not To Run...

I have been debating running the 1/2 marathon in 6 days. I haven't been training for it because I hadn't planned to be in town on the 4th of July. Casey flies in from his mission to the Philippines on July 1st at 9 p.m. We will be at the airport when he flies in. We had intended to stay in Utah until his homecoming on July 12th. Since that time, lots of things have come up. Cameron & Micah are going to scout camp for all of the week before the homecoming, and James is going with them for 1/2 of that week. All of the kids have sports that they would miss, and most importantly, Jamey and Ian have their final baseball game on July 2nd. So we'll watch Casey fly in, visit with him that evening, and then head back to Lander the next morning. Of course, we'll go back out for his homecoming & our family get-together in Park City.

James and I have lengthened our run to where we might be going 7 1/2 - 8 miles a morning now (we haven't measured it past the 7 mile mark, and we'd gotten used to that so we started adding distance again). I know I'd be fine to run 8 miles, and I'd probably do OK running all 13 miles if I decide to do it. My concerns are that 1) I haven't run a race since Kija was born. I'm not sure if I would have a hard time emotionally with it. Maybe I would be fine. I just don't know. 2) I know I would be concerned about improving on my 1:57 time, and that I will feel bad about myself if I don't run it faster than I did last time. I know that sounds silly, but it would feel like moving backwards to me if I didn't beat my time, even though I had trained for it back then, and I haven't trained this time.

But I love to run. I love to race. When the race starts, my competitive spirit comes out and I just want to run and run and run, and I think "I have to pass that bald guy, I can't let that bald guy beat me. I have to pass that fat guy. I can't let a fat guy beat me," etc. Knowing that the hardest part of the race is the route we run every morning makes me not worry about making it all the way, but who knows what will happen. We have never timed ourselves so I don't know how fast we run it. When I ran the half marathon, my goal was to finish in 2 hours. When we hit the halfway point, I looked at my watch and saw that I was past one hour. So I sped up, and when I saw that I had 15 minutes left of my goal, and still 2 miles to go, I sped up even more, and came in 3 minutes before 2 hours. I'm not sure I could do that now. And I won't know unless I try it... but I'll feel bad about myself if I don't make it... (I don't deal well with failure.)

If I do run it, James is going to run it with me. His sister Laura is going to run it and said that we could all run together, but I'd probably slow her down. Kris & Therese are both running it, but they've been training for a marathon so it will feel like a short run to them. They were about 15 minutes behind me when we ran it last time, but they'll probably be an hour ahead of me now!

So I need to decide by tomorrow because then the cost to enter the race goes up by $10. To run or not to run...