The humidity hits

I did an easy 4.5 miles yesterday in prep for the half on Sunday and I think we can safely say that running in high humidity kind of sucks.  It was like running through soup.  I was soaked at the end, but I think a lot of that was just because I had to basically swim around the reservoir, since it wasn't actually all that warm.  But it's amazing how the humidity can make what should have been a very pleasant run much more challenging than it otherwise would have been.  

I think that was my last run before the race on Sunday, and I'm feeling very optimisitc about my chances of doing well.  I'm hoping to at least maintain a 10 minute mile, if not a hair faster.  The sub-2 hour half is just not going to happen this time, maybe because I didn't really do anything to train for it.  I've been going along thinking that I can just kind of get faster without really putting in much effort, but clearly that's wrong since I'm not really getting any faster!  I do feel a little bummed that I'm not doing the full marathon, and even very briefly entertained the stupid idea of switching to the full, but I'd just be setting myself up to fail.  I keep forgetting that there's a whole big chunk of the course that goes over through Regent Square and over into Homewood - it doesn't go straight from Oakland into Highland Park like I keep wanting to think that it does.  The half course is just so stupid, though, going through so many areas where no one really lives.  Are there really going to be crowds to cheer us on?  I certainly hope so.  I've told my mom to come out and cheer for us, since she lives right off of North Avenue, and I should be pretty easy to spot in my neon green top.  And hopefully the marathon is back to stay and I can do the full one next year or the year after.  As Haakan keeps telling me, I've got plenty of years of marathoning ahead of me.

So now there's just the logistics to work out.  We could eat early Italian before the race, or Chinese (since all that rice is carbs, right?), or Thai from up the street... decisions decisions.