Pre-race, second time around

I'm so much more confident about this race than I was about my first.  With a four hour limit and a chocolate feast waiting for me at the finish, I'm planning to slow down a bit so I have more of an appetite!  The weather looks awesome (forecast of mostly sunny, 48 °F at race start, 62 °F at my projected 3 hour finish) and I'm so excited to get back out in an all-women race field.

-- Since my last half --
Training miles: 76
Longest walk: 8

My biggest concern about my gear this time is that I think my shoes are pretty well worn and I don't have time to break in a new pair.  We went to the Houston Marathon expo is this weekend and I got two new pairs to add into the rotation.  The Cocoa Half will probably be the last race for my Gel Nimbus 14's.  These shoes took me through the exciting weeks of building my longest distance ever from 6.2 up to 13.1 miles, so I'm pretty attached to them.  Gel Nimbus 14, meet Gel Nimbus 15.

I've been thinking a lot about my long term goals and for some reason running again will not stop lurking in the back of my mind.  Christian pointed out that before I started walking longer distances I complained about knee pain when climbing the stairs with #4 in my arms.  I haven't mentioned that in months and my walking hasn't led me to take any ibuprofen or even use my former BFF, the magic self-heating knee wrap.  If I can keep building strength and stick to my nutrition, maybe I will be running 5k's with kid #1 by the end of the year.  I saw a motivational picture that said "The voice in your head that says that you can't do this is a liar."  While that's certainly not true in extreme cases, I'm not as far gone as I once thought I was.  I wouldn't ever have my kids give up on their dreams and the only way I can teach them that is to pursue mine.

San Antonio, here I come!