Photographer: Lee Symborski

I cannot believe it is finally here.  In two sleeps I am going to be running another marathon and boy do I have the pre-race jitters! This race is especially exciting because I have three of my girls from the 10k clinics I coached running their first half marathon, my Dad running his first half marathon and my friend Larissa running her first half marathon! I am so proud of them and so excited for them!

Now back to race talk… I am using these pre-race jitters to put together my race strategy and goals so here they are!

I am going to start with my Goals for the race.  As many marathoners recommended I am using this run as a training run.  Of course I am going to put all I have into it but my main goal is to enjoy this run.  I have put MANY months into training to date and I am excited to see my training in action.  I am a touch competitive and am really time driven so on top of enjoying the race I have set three time goals. If I hit any of them I will be very proud of myself.  I broke my goals into 3 scenarios.  My first scenario is that the weather is perfect, my body feels great and I run the best I can.  In that scenario I would love to be able to run a 3:45:00 Marathon.  My second scenario is where I feel is most attainable thus far in my training is to run a 3:58:00 Marathon.  My third scenario is if I struggle I would like to run a 4:07:11 marathon. Realistically if I can pull off a sub 4 hour marathon I will be ecstatic. I know I can do it and I am determined to do it with a smile on my face.

Now that I have ran a marathon and know where my struggles are I have moved my Boston Marathon Qualifying goal to next year.  Through my first marathon I had the distance down but not the speed.  I know I can be speedy when I want to so I need to build that speedy strength and confidence for this run. Now back to my marathon plan for this Sunday!

I am pretty consistent with my pre-race day strategy.  Today and tomorrow I will hydrate and make sure to each extra healthy carbs and drink a couple sports drinks. For those of you who are first time long distance runners I suggest you drink water ensuring your pee is always fairly clear. This is a funny concept but it has worked for me through all of my races.  I like to drink two to three bottles of water with a NUUN tablet in it per day as well. In regards to food I always have a smoothie with my oatmeal and a banana for breakfast, a cliff bar for my snack, chicken and rice for lunch, pasta or quinoa for dinner with usually chicken, oatmeal if I am still hungry later in the evening and popcorn if I feeling snacky.  Make sure you listen to your body though because what works for me might be to much or to little for you.

The day before my race I don’t eat to late, I always have a Lush Big Blue Bath (greatest bath bomb ever) followed by laying out my clothes.  I haven’t picked out my outfit yet but I have ran in all my clothes A LOT so pretty much anything I have is fairly chafe free.

My morning will go as it usually does, I will freak out, drink water and eat the regular breakfast.  Get all ready then dance around and drive my boyfriend crazy. This time the race starts at 7 so I am wanting to leave the house at 545.

Now for the actual race plan…

I usually aim to do a negative split but I am going to aim for a steady 5:20km pace run.  I am going to be a little faster getting out of the coral but from km 1 to 30 I want to keep my pace the same. If I am feeling amazing at km 30 I will pick up the pace.  I will do a head to tow body check every ten km’s and take a gel every 40 minutes.  I also have some honey stingers just in case I struggle hard. I am also going to stop at each station to hydrate.

So that’s my plan! For all of you who are racing this weekend I wish you all the luck in the world and if you are running the Calgary Marathon I will see you there!