Hampton Half in 5 days!

• I'm still sick. Blah! My sniffles turned into another cough, but not as bad as the previous cough. My heart rate is higher than usual, but not crazy high. Just before I start running it's about 70 (20 beats higher than usual, but still lower than it was with my last cold). The half marathon should be interesting...my goal is to run 1:40 or better. I honestly have no idea how realistic my goal is.
  
• The real goal for the half is to figure what kind of shape I'm in. I'm running a marathon on May 1 and need to determine what pace is realistic for that race. I'd like to qualify for Boston. Boston will be on my birthday next year. What better way to spend your birthday, right? (Nick says statements like that only prove that I'm off my rocker.)
  
• Despite my poor training and lack of dieting, I have reached my pre-pregnancy weight. It took 5 months. I'm a little surprised. Emily is exclusively breastfed and hasn't started solids yet. With Kaylee, I didn't take off the last few pounds until she was eating solids for a number of months.
  
• I'm glad that I'm back to my normal weight, but I still don't look great. My belly looks deflated, but I wasn't happy with my belly until about 1.5 years after Kaylee was born. It just takes times (at least for me).
• I find the heart rate discussion interesting. I had no idea that during races your heart rate is 5-10 beats higher than usual. It's interesting though, the last two years I've started running with music during races, but not to help me run faster. I find that listening to music at the start (of a 5K especially) I am more relaxed and less likely to run the first mile too fast. In fact, a lot of the music I listen to when I run is slower. I know this contrary to what most people find helpful. Not running too fast at the beginning of a race is a real challenge for me though. It stems from my cross-country days. My coach trained us to run the first 400-800 meters of a race as a sprint. In cross-country, the start is like a funnel. If you don't get out fast, you'll be stuck. Road races are just different (and most of the races I run now are longer than a 5K)...Anyway, I wonder if the music helps keep my heart rate down?
• 144 is my body's favorite training heart rate. I've run several runs from 6 miles - 13 miles at many different paces from 7:45 pace to 9:15 pace that all had an average heart rate of 144. The pace is faster or slower depending on how I feel, but my body seems to settle right at 144.
  
• For the half, I think I'll aim for a heart rate in the 150-160 range for the first half of the race. Then ignore the monitor and just run by feel for the rest of the race.
  
• My mom is running the half too, but as a training run. She'll be running the Hyannis Marathon the next week. Her training has been phenomenal. She did a 22 mile run last week, and she's still feeling strong. She's a little nervous though. Her long runs have been on the treadmill because of all the snow. She's thinks that might be bad. I say if she can stand running a bunch of 20-22 milers on the treadmill, then she's ready for anything. What do you guys think? Do you think long runs on the treadmill are a detriment to marathon training? Have any of you had to do a training cycle on the treadmill? I'm sure she'd love to read about others' experiences (and so would I)!
• Here's a random photo of my little ladies taken with my new favorite iPhone app (Hipstamatic).
  
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