Rest day!

Yes, in honour of the hypo 1/2 tomorrow, I'm not running today. I jogged just a few miles yesterday--the dog hung in for two until the slush got to him. It's gotten colder again. This is good for my hands--it's so dry that the sweat just goes to the outside of my mitts and freezes there, without chilling my hands. It's not so good for the rest of me, though, and definitely not for the dog. This morning was about -37C windchill, so it was a really hard decision to maintain this as a rest day.

As for the race tomorrow...

I picked up my packet yesterday. The kit included a hat and gloves. The gloves look nice but gloves usually aren't that effective for me, but I'll try them. The hat, on the other hand, I'm thrilled about. I had a hat from the 2006 Hypo Half which I liked and wore often until it was stolen by a rent-a-cop on APG (long story), and I was disappointed last year to get a bag instead. Nice bag, but I wanted to replace my hat. Now I have and I can run the race with a light heart and warm head. lol

This will be my third time running the race, and they've made changes to the route. Before, it used to be a vaguely stretched-out Z-shaped out and back totaling 5k, and a little bit at the end to make up the last 1.1k. I had no problems with the out and back, running the stretch eight times....it helped me get into a rhythm, and I could see people I knew often on the course. The last bit at the end, though, sucked. It always seemed longer than I'd expected. So when I heard they were changing the course, I got my hopes up. No more appendix!

Nope, they've made part of the out and back into a loop instead. And the loop is in the middle, so the tight turns of the out and back are still there. Not that I really minded them, but I would think that they and the appendix would be the first to go if they were going to rejig the route. It seems they've thrown the baby out and kept the bathwater, but probably other folks disliked running the same stretch 8 times and maybe the new way will be better. At the very least, it'll help me ease into the first loop and keep the start easy because I'll be trying it out, getting to know it, etc. We'll see how it goes.

I would like to pb the course at least, but my hopes aren't high. I'm not worried about my foot but, heck, yeah, I am, or about feeling like a slug in general.

So, today, I won't do much, just schoolwork and so forth, maybe walk the dog, maybe go down Bank street and check out a store that supposedly has Obama tshirts (this being unfinished biz from my Philly trip)...Yes, We Can!

And I'll have to figure out some sort of mental game. And decide if I'm going to wear a Garmin. I like the idea of just running, but the numbers do help in the latter part of the race, and I'd like to know what my splits are, too. Maybe I'll tape over the screen and then pull the tape off if I feel desperate.

At any rate, it's going to be tres cold!