Yardstick

Talking with a friend the other day, he mentioned making a placard as a kid out of poster board and yardstick.  I realized, I don't own a yard stick, and I asked:  neither he nor his girl friend owned a yardstick.  Does any one own a yardstick any more?  Maybe if you sew?  Why did this seeming ubiquitous item just disappear from households?

This weekend's Chilly is the same course and very similar conditions to last year.  It's a figurative yardstick for performance gains in the last year.

Last year, I exceeded my goals by 2 minutes, improving 6 minutes over my previous PR.  This year's goal is a further 4 minutes improvement.  The plan is to take off at a 7:20, then be governed by HR for the remaining 12 miles.  I should know by mile 3 if I'm gonna hit 1:36 or not.  I will need to be able to run faster at a lower HR than I did at the Devil's Chase.  I've had a good taper this week, and low resting HRs, so I'm hopeful this is possible.

I'm looking forward to the race.  It's been a sorta crazy week at work, so I haven't focused much on it.  But I have hit my workouts, eaten well (even without the cheese), slept pretty well and had nice low resting heart rates all week, so fingers crossed that all equates to a speedy new PR.