Distance: 20.2 miles
Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
Comments: Well, the first race of the cycle is done. I have a much better sense of where I am at now and what I need to aim for over the next two months.
The 41:22 time indicates that a 3 hour 15 minute marathon is a very real possibility. That's Boston qualifying which, although I haven't mentioned it before because I wanted to stay focused on the task at hand, is actually my real goal of all this.
In any case, this was a good week to practice tapering and keeping myself on my toes mentally and physically while doing the miniumum amount of working out in order to keep myself rested for the race. There's a thin line there and I want to know exactly where it is for the week of the marathon.
The downside of all this was that it screwed my training schedule something horrid. It really is too close to the half-marathon on Dec. 3 making it tough to get the distance runs in I think I need. This week was, by far, the least I have run on any week since starting (except for the week I went to Brazil). That's a bitch for my momentum.
I knew this when I signed up for the race but I justified it due to the fact the New Times 10K was a larger event - almost 3,000 runners in the 10K alone - and it was be a good way to start acclimating myself to the raceday chaos that the marathon will bring.
The race Sunday finished up the first half of my training regimine for the marathon. Now begins the real push for the thing. Pretty much everything prior to this was building the base, now it is time to fine-tune for the race itself.
I need to rack up the serious long runs for endurance, the short runs for technique and one more race for experience. I need to be working on getting my strategy in place, my state of mind on track and eliminating all the irksome distractions.
Oh yeah, I'm also going to be doing everything humanly possible to avoid injury and illness as well.
This week will be pretty busy since it's my only 'normal' week in this month-long period of the training between races. I'm going to get the mileage back to the 45-mile range while including track and hill work.