Warsaw half-marathon 2011 (pre)

Yesterday I came to Warsaw for the half-marathon. I was a bit shocked to see the snow lying around -- not something I was planning for.

Bad news continued today as I realized that I... forgot to pay the registration fee. I guess it just didn't occur to me that the organizers would not send me a kindly reminder. Gladly, it was not a problem and after visiting the event office I came back with a lighter wallet but with the starting number in my hand.

Then a quick visit to marathon expo, with a nice stand by Brooks, where I was originally planning to grab a pair of my favorite Adrenaline, but instead ended up buying race shoes: Green Silence.

Reason? For some time already I was very curious about the natural running and now that it is slowly starting to become trendy, I decided to give it a try before that would automatically result in being accused of blindly following the fashion (admittedly, it may be too late already ;). Anyhow, I'm not crazy enough to start running barefoot right away, so I decided that starting with light shoes, such as Green Silence, sounds like an idea.

Afterwards I was planning to do a short run to get a boost for tomorrow, but by that time it was getting late and it was freaking cold outside, so instead I ended up... going to cinema :). The bad thing is that I did quite a bit of walking today and, in my new shoes (no, not the running shoes), I got blisters. Well, it's gonna hurt like hell tomorrow. I only hope it will not hamper my results ;)

Speaking of which. The minimum plan is 1:30. Anything less than that and I can pretty much forget about running the full marathon in 3:10 in 5 weeks from now. The maximum plan is not much different: with 1:29:35 being my personal best, any better than that and I'll be very happy. And indeed, tomorrow being my birthday and all, I do hope to get myself this nice present :). Wish me good luck.

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