RACE DAY!! (And New Year's Cards)

I've set this post to publish while we are getting ready to start today's race. I'm using this as a final reminder to myself:

- Start conservative and build if you can. Don't be stupid right away.

- Try to keep them all under 7 / mile, but be ready (and OK) with anything.

- 6:30 / mile puts you at 1:25:xx, and that'd be SUPER! Start slower than that and see if you can build to faster than that during the latter part of the race. (Hopefully it's not slick and windy... that'd take it's toll.)

- Check your footstrikes a few times throughout the race to take your mind off the "hurt" of racing. You've done a decent job over the last 9 months at bringing your footstrikes up from 165ish to 180ish. See if you can keep that up to avoid too much heel-striking throughout the race.

- Remember, just HAVE FUN! Your "A" race this year is competing in the entire MDRA Grand Prix series... NOT just this one race.

At last year's race (where I did the half and Pharmie did the 10K just like we're doing today) is where we announced that Pharmie was pregnant:

Pharmie coming to the finish with her "Henry bump!"

And since I'm showing off old photos, I just put together our last 5 year of New Year's Cards. Check these out for a bit of a trip down memory lane:

2008: that's my first 70.3 and 140.6 on the right. (Click the photo for a larger version)



2009: the year of "Steve's Ass" being prominently displayed on our New Years Card.
(Click on the photo for a larger version)



2010. (Click the photo for a larger version)



2011.



2012. (Click the photo for a larger version)

Of the 23 photos in our past 5 years of cards, 5 didn't contain photos of Pharmie or I (they were "cats" or "Henry and cats" photos). Of the remaining 18, HALF (9) were at races and 4 more were during some sort of training session. Awesome.

Back with a race report soon!! Have a great weekend!