Pre-Race Jitters

Successful people have a bigger fear of failure than people who've never done anything because if you haven't been successful, then you don't know how it feels to lose it all.--Jay-Z

Tomorrow I will run the largest 10k in the works with approximately 65,000 other folks. The AJC Peachtree Road Race on July 4th is kind of a big deal. The weird thing for me is that I don't typically get that serious race day feel unless it's a half-marathon. Recently the feeling only comes up when it's a full marathon. I felt that way right up until the point that I walked into the Expo. There is something about this race that gave it sort of a marathon feel. I started to get my game face on.

So I'm walking around this place and I'm talking to the exhibitors and then I see a booth for Jeff Galłoway, legendary running author and coach. It was super exciting to meet a guy in his seventies, whose written over ten books about running and can still do a marathon a month. 

I've not trained for this race nor will I attempt to PR here because it's hot, there will be 7 million people running, and I just want to enjoy my first race in Atlanta. That said, I feel as though tomorrow will not be a run of the mill 10k. I want to go out strong and finish strong and pick off as many as I can.

One last note about Jeff Galloway. Just in the brief moment that we spoke, he encouraged all types of runners to get better at their running. He walked people over to other places just to help them out. He spoke with such joy with everyone about running it became contagious.