Hooah!!

Hooah!!  That's the Army's battle cry.  This weekend is the Army 10 Miler and I've got mixed emotions about it.  On the one hand, I'm excited to do it again.  The race is huge, well organized, and has several personally significant features. 

1.  It's the Army, and I work for them.
2.  It takes place in DC along the National Mall, where I used to work.
3.  Last year, I had a near DNF when I pulled a hamstring.

Up until last week, I haven't had this race on my mind.  I had the Hidden Treasures Half Marathon to worry about. What's 10 little ole miles when I'm doing 13.1 two weeks before hand? 

Well since the HM is over, the ATM is the next big thing.  My last post I mentioned I may have done something to me knee/ITB during the HM and was taking time to recoup.  I decided to just rest the entire two weeks so I've not logged a single mile since then.  I've done the foam roller a few times, and plan to use it more over the next few days and hopefully things will go well on Sunday.

That brings me to the mixed emotions.  I'm slightly worried that I'll have a repeat of last year.  I'm hyper sensitive to sensations around the knee area.  Could it happen?  Yeah, there's a distinct possibility that something will go wrong, but I've only had two instance of pain and I'm putting in the rest so I'm hedging against it. 

With that said, my goal is to finish strong and beat my time last year, which isn't hard to do.  No pushing it, no trying to hit that magic time.  I'm going to relax, enjoy the scenery, the crowd, and have fun with it.  To paraphrase John "The Penguin" Bingham; you spend a lot of money for the privilege of running a race, why not slow down and get your money's worth?