Don't think about it the Thursday before and ask your über-fit husband if maybe you should go running to prep. He will only slyly smirk at you and tell you that you should have been running weeks ago, and that if you were to run now you wouldn't be able to do it on Saturday.
No, training is important, especially if you end up participating in a race with only 200 people. If you are doing a race with 13,000 other people, you're fine; there will be plenty of other people who procrastinated like you. But when it is the "first annual" race, only the die-hard runners (who show up to every 5k, 10k, triathlon, and marathon) show up.
Should you choose not to train, you will be running (did I say running? I mean walking) alone. At least in a big race you will have "goal" people to pass next. 200 person race? Not so much. Oh, and you will have the people who finished at the front of the pack coming back around for a victory lap...and they will almost lap you.
And when you are done, after a few hours, your legs will tell you how much they hate you, your knees will laugh at you, and your husband will slyly smirk and ask how the race went.
Trust me on all of this. This morning I woke up at dark-thirty and had said experience with the First Annual Fighting Hunger 5k.
Thankfully, my friend Ellen, who is also über-fit, having done P90x (REALLY done, none of this half-way stuff; we're talking food and all 90 days) and trained for a marathon, took pity on me and joined me in the race. She could have easily done much better than the 46 minutes and change that I took, but she stayed right with me the whole time, encouraging me on. She is a saint. Thanks, Ellen.
I do think I deserve just a little pity, though. I have a growth in my leg (no, it is not an alien; why do I always get that question?) that I have had surgery on twice that can make running a little painful. I did run some after my first surgery, but time got away from me and then it became uncomfortable again. But running won't kill me and the pain is a lot less than it used to be; an aspirin normally does the trick. I mean, ooooh the pain; poor me....
To be fair to my husband, he may have also had a little worry on his face. But he knows I am really fine, that I know better than to not train, and that if he had tried to dissuade me from going I would have gone anyways. I'm a little stubborn.
Overall, though, it was fun. The area was beautiful, the company was fantastic, and the victory chicken minis were delicious. So was my victory nap.
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