Pre Race Tune-Up

I'm a little worried about this half marathon on Sunday, and wondering if I am doing something dumb thinking I can get under 1:30.  Training is going well, but I haven't been back long and I haven't done a lot of long runs.  So this morning I looked back over my training log to just before the first time I broke 1:30.  In terms of weekly mileage, I'm doing about the same.  The first time I'd been training solidly for about 3 months post injury, this rime it's only been about 2.  

Last time I'd kept up my fitness with some pool running, whereas this time I just got lazy and fat.  Weight wise, I'm a couple pounds heavier, but that's OK.  Speedwise, I was running my workouts slower back then.  No real trackwork, and tempos were 6:50, vs 6:30-6:40 now.  So that's good.

As a scientific comparison, this morning I decided I'd mirror my pre-race tuneup from before that first sub 1:30 race.  It was about 6 miles, with the middle 3 at an average 6:52 pace.  I have GPS tracks for all my runs so I could run the exact same route and had detailed splits.  Here's how it went....

• Split, Last time, this time
  
• 0-0.5m 6:56 6:41
  
• 0.5-1m 6:52 6:42
  
• 1-1.5m 6:45 6:40
  
• 1.5-2m 7:00 6:43
  
• 2-2.5m 6:50 6:43
  
• 2.5-3m 6:49 6:40
  
• Ave 6:52 6:42 - Heartrate was about the same for both runs.

So bottomline is that I am better shape than I was when I did my first sub 1:30, and this is a faster course (Kaiser this time, first half of CIM last time). Plus the weather looks like it will be good (51 with no wind).  So I need to stop wussing about and just go for it!

I'm going to pace for 6:52 for the first 5 miles, then we get the easy 2 downhill miles, which should be good for 20-30 seconds, then go back to 6:52 pace thru mile 10 and see how I am feeling.  If it's bad, I should be able to drop back to low 7s and still hit 1:30.  If it's good I could try to get down to 6:40 and have a shot at 1:29.