Old Dominion coming up

So in the weeks that followed Bear Mt. I never felt great.  I had two short races in Central Park the weekend after Bear Mt. on consecutive days.   Then the week after that, I did my overnight run (meaning I stay awake all day and night) and began my run at 4AM.  I timed it so I could then run over to Brooklyn for the start of the Brooklyn 1/2 marathon.  For whatever reason, maybe it was the 30 minute wait inside the corral.  When the race began, I was done.  My legs did not want to cooperate.  I not only felt slow (to me) I was slow (to me)!  I maybe averaged just under a 9 minute pace the first 3 miles.  Then got slower.  I walked the "big" hill in Prospect Park from halfway up and then stopped to talk to the Team in Training cheer section.  Letting them know I feel like s#it.  As I'm talking to them, two people I know pass and yell for me.  One is Mary, a former TNT participant from Brooklyn and another is my college friend Brendan.  So I run a little with Mary, we somehow passed Brendan and when Mary and I split apart after a couple miles, I ran a few with Brendan.  Talking to people while running really helped take my mind off of how bad I felt.  At mile 10, we split up and I managed to make a last push at around a 7:50 pace to the finish.  Giving me my slowest official 1/2 marathon time.  Technically it was my miles 15-28 but still.  I felt like I should have been able to run and 8-8:30 minute pace.  Not busting my a$$ and feeling terrible and coming away with a 1:55.  It is what it is and I'm happy I stuck through.  I thought I would have to walk most of it and finish in 3 hours at one point of the race.  Anyway, right after the race, I noticed my IT Band was bugging me.  First time in 5-6 years.  So since then, I've been doing some hip exercises (thanks once again Snipes!), stretching and rolling.  I took a week off of running and started again this past weekend and haven't felt any issue. 

So fingers crossed I don't run into any major problems at Old Dominion.  The goal this time is sub-24.  Obviously, I want to finish.  But I really, really, really want that Sterling Silver Buckle!  I feel like I should be able to do it.  There are many factors out of my control (weather) that can make it a very hard day.  I hope I can just stick with it and push forward and get there in one full day. 

Here we go!