This weekend is the Columbus Pilgrimage Half Marathon.  This is the second of two Half Marathons that I will be running this year.  The other one was two weeks ago in Greenwood, Mississippi. The one this weekend is in my hometown.  Convenient!  And it really doesn’t give me a good excuse not to run it.

I’m looking forward to this race.  Like the Half in Greenwood, I have done some homework and looked at the past race results to see how the finishers for my age division have done.

If I have an exceptional race, I have the potential to take 3rd in my AG.  Of course, that is how it looked for Greenwood as well and a bunch of super speedy women came out of the woodwork.  I love that there are women my age out there running and doing it well!

So, I am still trying to piece together a race strategy for Sat’s race.  Most of it is flat with the exception of two hills.  One in the first mile and the other one the last half mile of the race.  Both hills are ugly and will be a challenge.  I am still thinking on how I want to tackle this one….

The other thing that is exciting about this weekends race is I will have company!  I have a running buddy who will be traveling up from the Gulf Coast (Biloxi, Mississippi) to run this race.  She is going to be staying at my house to help with race expenses (races can get a little pricey).  I’m really looking forward to getting to chat with her.

I’ve mentioned before that I am the Mississippi Chapter Admin for RunJunkEes. Seeing as a lot of RunJunkEes will be running this event, I’ve organized a pre-race dinner for Friday evening at a local restaurant.  I have a solid head count of who will be at the dinner and gave the establishment a heads up yesterday that we would be coming and at what time.  I thought that would be a nice thing to do so that when a bunch of hungry runners show up for dinner, they wouldn’t have a stroke or something.  🙂

I’ve been cleaning the house seeing as I’ll have my friend over.  My house looks like I’ve been doing some heavy duty training for quite a while and not a lot of cleaning.  Happens.

I haven’t told Paxton that we’ll have company tomorrow.  I think I’ll just keep that under my hat for a little while longer.  Paxton loves company and gets very excited when people come to visit.  Waiting to tell him is a good idea.

Pre-Race dinner is Friday evening 6:00 PM.  Gun Time, Saturday 7:00 am.  Can’t wait!!!