It's GO TIME (one of three, anyway)

So here we are, a mere 4 days away from my first official race of the season, the St. Luke's Half Marathon in Allentown, PA.  This will be the 3rd time I've run this race...so I feel like I know what to expect, BUT will never say I'm fully prepared for anything!  I'm looking at this event as a good venue to get my feet wet - and good pre-training for the one event I'm really focusing on:  Marine Corps Marathon.  DUN DUN DUNNNNNNN....

Ah, yes, the marathon I'm hoping will be the big redeemer...I've run only one other full 26.2 mile race and can honestly say that it kicked my rear end.  That was almost 11 years ago.  Things have come a long way since then...I trained in cotton t-shirts, mesh shorts, and stashed bananas on my car odometer measured pre-planned route for fuel along the way.  I did not opt to train with any music - but would've had to use a personal cd player (or maybe even a....Walkman!?)...Now, we've got wick shirts, wick shorts, wick underwear (wick-everything!), iPods, gu (or other related brands) packs, gels, bars..., and mapmyrun.com (or trainingpeaks.com) to (perfectly, I might add) pre-map any route, anywhere with the click of a mouse.  Instead of just Gatorade, now we've got Powerade, Cytomax, Liv, Ironman Perform, to name a few.  Not to mention my gps watch and heart rate monitor that I couldn't do without...So just with all these new performance-based goodies, I should PR by a landslide, right?!

I'm not going to take anything for granted...

As I've mentioned before, I'm a middle-of-the-pack kind of girl and judging by what I can do with a half marathon, I'm looking to finish at about the 4 hour mark.  Yipes.  Piece of cake for some, but a pretty tough yet do-able goal for me.  At least, that's going to be my mantra.

Now, to find the time for training....

Here's a recipe for a great breakfast for your early (yaaawn!) morning run courtesy of Whole Foods:
(click here)
Perfect Oatmeal

Prep and Cook Time: 15 minutes Ingredients: 2-1/4 cups water dash salt 1 cup regular rolled oats 1/2 tsp cinnamon 1/4 cup dried cranberries 1/4 cup chopped walnuts 1 TBS flaxseeds 1 TBS blackstrap molasses 1 cup milk or dairy-free milk alternative

Directions:

1. Combine the water and salt in a small saucepan and turn the heat to high.
2. When the water boils, turn the heat to low, add oatmeal, and cook, stirring, until the water is just absorbed, about 5 minutes. Add cinnamon, cranberries, walnuts, and flaxseeds. Stir, cover the pan, and turn off heat. Let set for 5 minutes. Serve with milk and molasses.Serves 2