Naples Half Marathon Goal: Beat Paula Radcliffe's World Record?

A few people have asked me what my goal is for the Naples Half Marathon, and it's something I had put off deciding because there were so many data points to consider and I wanted to first see how my training was going.

A few of the facts I've been considering:

Favorite Fact Contemplated:

• Paula Radcliffe's World Record for the full marathon is 2:15:25.  It would be great to beat that time just to say that for now, anyway, no woman could run TWO consecutive half marathons faster than I could complete one.

Is Naples Bad Luck? Hopefully not for my Half's Sake!

Did I mention that I used to be an ice skater and prefer to work out in the cold?

If I wore no sleeves on the ice, just think how hot I must be in a tank top and 70* weather!

And that if you don't get up VERY EARLY in Naples it gets hot?

I'm screwed.

If you had asked me what my goals were going to be for the Brooklyn half when I signed up for it I would have enthusiastically listed my a, b, and c goals for the day - a being if everything went great during training and the weather and my body were feeling great on race day and c probably would have involved just besting my current PR of 2:17:43.  "Why?" you ask.  Well, I began preparing with what I felt was enough time, I now have the confidence of having completed a marathon under my belt, and the course is supposed to be incredibly fast [mostly flat].

There's Always Some Excuse....

As much as I like to think it will change or be different next race, there's always some excuse for why training didn't go as well as I hoped and I'm sure there always will be!  Actually, maybe that's not true - for the marathon I managed to stick pretty steadfastly to my training plan (probably out of sheer terror over what was awaiting me), but for anything shorter there seems to be a recurring theme.