Its strange not spending ALL my time running, which is one of the good things about tapering .. I can actually live a somewhat normal life (if you call it normal). The problem is, I still go to bed just as early and can’t seem to sleep past 5am .. I’ve just been trying use the time to do other things I haven’t had time for over the last bunch of weeks. The biggest struggle is watching how much I eat right now because I don’t have my miles very high like i’m used to, that and just being safe to not try anything new or out of the ordinary until after the race.

So with all this time on my hands, I’ve had some thoughts about how I think I can kick up my training a notch this summer and get back to running better … (maybe even achieve a PR). I had two thoughts on how to approach it, first, I’ve been contemplating the lack of cross training in my training plans, which in the past has always helped me run better when i could get it in. The biggest challenge with it now though is that I just have no access to anything but running at this point. Years back I had an on-site gym at work that gave me access to equipment, but these days i’ve found that I’m just not a gym guy (as I’ve written about before). So no gym, and no bike as of yet and then adding in the fact that I’m a terrible swimmer (i’d probably drowned) it really limits what I can do .. I figure that not having a bike can be easily corrected because after talking to a friend that bikes, they have inexpensive bikes just for this purpose that are less expensive locally here just to get a day or two of easy riding in at least to get a start. I’ve looked at some pricing on bikes and I just can’t spend a large sum of money on a bike I probably won’t use very heavily..

The second way I thought about how to kick it up a notch is to start eating better. As a runner (and pseudo-athlete), I just don’t eat right anymore .. I mean I watch my calories and limit my fat intake, i’m just not eating the right stuff and I think its because I have to FIND the right stuff again.. I’ve struggled with my weight for about a year and a half now and I think both the combination of cross-training and eating better will do it. Its not that i’m fat, I just have a belly on me .. and I really think I can cut my times in racing if I can get rid of some pounds.

So i’ve tried hard to not look ahead at the weekend weather for the race, but for some reason I can’t stay away … looks like it might be a bit chilly overnight this weekend at the shore. Well, I’ve been there before with the cold and with a 9am race start Sunday morning and sunshine in the forecast for the day, I think we’ll be okay as long as the wind stays out of the south (NOT THE NORTH!!)

Less than 96 hours until the race, and countdown is on ..