Wicked Half-Marathon Pregame

The Wicked Half-Marathon in Salem is this Saturday morning. The weather looks good but cool, in the high 40's. Shortly after the Triple Threat Half-Marathon in early August, I had high hopes for this race, but fortune put some roadblocks in my path. These included a few injuries in August and, the last few weeks, a nagging cold that isn't bad but won't seem to go away. The injuries impacted my training in August and the cold, while it hasn't slowed my training down or prevented me from running the half marathon, does make it much harder to control my eating. I'm just not interested in being hungry while miserable from a cold. Worse, a Coke in the afternoon makes me feel a lot better and is difficult to resist. The bottom line of all that is I haven't lost all the weight I hoped in preparation for the race. My pre-race weigh-in this morning was 186.5, a three pound loss since the Triple Threat race and a lot less than I hoped, but I suppose I should be grateful that I am still losing, if more slowly.

In any event, I'm not going to push it as hard as the last race, the August injuries having taught me a lesson. But the course is easier and it won't be as warm, so we will see what happens. It's an interesting course as well, through historic downtown Salem and out through the upscale neighborhoods on Marblehead Neck.