I'm in charge, nerves

With four days until my first half marathon, I’m extremely nervous (and occasionally excited). My current stomach knotters:

• The weather: it’s hot and humid. I don’t run well when it’s hot or humid. Excellent.
• An illness: I’m afraid I’ll get sick before the race. Every sniffle, every cough, every ache or pain is cause for concern. Am I getting sick? I CAN’T get sick.
• Tripping: as in, tripping and falling or tripping and spraining an ankle, knee, leg, something. I'm clumsy. This is entirely possible.

Looking at these concerns, I'm realizing the ridiculousness of them. I can't control any of them. So, I'm going to focus instead on things I can control.

• Hydration: Our coach told us about the importance of hydrating two to three days in advance of the race. I can do this. I like water. I drink a lot of it anyway. Easy enough.
• Diet: I've read many, many articles (and listened to my coach talk) about race day (and night before) nutrition. Basically, eat things you're used to eating. Don't try anything new. Carbohydrates are an ideal form of energy. Same thing for the morning of the race. I can do this. I'm in charge of what goes in my stomach.
• Sleep: That's it. Sleep. Get good rest the night before, but more importantly, two nights before the race. I rock at sleeping! I need to sleep well Friday night? No problem! I'm always exhausted from the work week, and I have no problem whatsoever getting in some serious sleeping hours.

I am in control of this race. I trained. I know I can do this. I will hydrate, eat smart and sleep well. Bring it!

Day 7

Tuesday’s run: rained out. But, never fear, our coach had rainy day lesson plans (yes, he used to be a PE teacher). He went into details about our training schedules, nutrition and rest days (since we had one yesterday).

I also learned that I’m an idiot. OK, I knew I was, but I just got further proof of this fact. I thought all of the energy gels were generically called “goos.” Wrong. They are called “energy gels” or just “gels.” There is a brand, GU, pronounced “goo” (which I thought was pronounced “gee-you”). So, excuse me for being an idiot. And, just ignore most of this post (but, even if I’m an idiot, I still think “Goo review” makes a better title than “Gel review”).

Besides me being an idiot, I learned that rest days are good (and help prevent injury), we’re adding speed work to our training in September, and we’ll need to start fuelling ourselves (with energy gels, sport beans or something else I don’t know of yet) during our longer runs.