T Minus 5 Days and Counting

I didn't run at Burke Lake on Saturday, but I did go yesterday. I did fairly well overall, but I definitely went out too fast at the beginning and tired myself out. So I ended up walking a lot more than I had planned. Also, I spent the first mile trying to find the main trail—it gets weird around the parking lots and I decided to go the iffy way first so that I wasn't super tired and trying to find the trail. Anyway, the total was 5.47 miles, and the overall pace was 14:58. I checked my pace several times along the way, and my running started at under 10:00 pace and slowly made its way to 11:30. But even when I was super tired, the running/jogging never dipped below a 11:50 pace, which isn't fabulous but also isn't terrible, at least for my standards.

I'm getting a little nervous about the half marathon again, just because I feel like it's going to take forever and I'm going to be super tired. I really don't want to come in last! But running at Burke Lake helped me realize the following things:

1. I can ignore other people passing me. This was the first time I had run in a situation where a lot of people were also running, and I passed some and some passed me. Good to know.
2. Even if I'm not staying on my "plan" for the run/walk segments, I can still pick up and run for at least a little ways when I'm super tired. The running came in shorter spurts as I got more tired, but at least I could still make myself run.
3. It was good practice to run at a place where I couldn't just take a shortcut back home or hop off the treadmill. Since it's a giant loop with a lake in the middle, I had no choice but to press on, no matter how tired I was.
   
4. Even when I'm super tired, I can still walk at a decent pace and keep going. I never stopped, except to stretch.
   

I'm nervous about it, but I'm sure it will be fine. I'm also not looking forward to getting up so early, but there's nothing I can do about that! I can't tell what the weather is doing, so I might be on the treadmill today... hopefully outside...