It's about 9am on a lazy, Friday morning. I only have a four hour work shift today that starts at 1pm. It's a taper week with no run scheduled today, so I'm taking it easy and really enjoying it. Would enjoy it even more if Matty were around, but his work shift today is slightly longer than mine - 12 hours. Yikes!
Marathon in 9 days. I'm getting very excited again. Perhaps not quite as excited as I was for my first last spring. This is a different type of excitement as my goals and expectations are quite different. My training has been great this time around with no real injury - only minor aches and pains. Last spring I had to take several weeks off starting 16 weeks out from the marathon with an achilles injury and then try to build mileage back up and squeeze in enough 20 milers to even make it possible to finish the race. I did next to no speedwork. I still managed to BQ somehow. This time I expect much more out of myself. I expect pi! My goal is to run the entire marathon with my Pi Pace Team - to run a 3:14 marathon.
My goal after the race is to find the best local cheeseburger joint and celebrate.
I ran a half marathon last weekend! The second annual Brooksie Way Half Marathon. I planned originally to make it a marathon pace run, but after deciding to join the pace team, I realized I wouldn't have to worry about pacing myself and ran the race a little faster. haha! I know - shame on me. Still, I didn't really "race" it. I ran at a pace somewhere between MP and my half race pace. I made sure I was comfortable the entire race. Glad I did because I was still sore for a few days afterwards! How much worse would it have been if I had run hard!? Yikes!
What thrilled me about this strategy is I came in 2nd in my AG and 10th overall female. WOW! Also, my time was only 20 seconds slower than my half marathon PR (1:34:45 set at the Martian Half last spring). How did that happen when I wasn't running hard!?? And Brooksie is WAY hilly! It is definitely no PR course. It is a rollercoaster route. Now I need to find a nice, flat half marathon course and see what I can do! I wonder how much longer I will continue to improve like this. There has to be a plateau somewhere along the line... :-)
I have one last race before the marathon, an 8.5 mile trail run. I hear it isn't too technical, so hopefully I can really pick up some speed on the course. My last tempo run before the marathon?
Speaking of trails and marathons. Next year I'm most excited about... well, okay, I'm most excited about Boston, but not far behind Boston is my eagerness to do my first trail marathon, the Grand Island Trail Marathon. Then a few months after that, this little redhead will wander into the realm of ultras for the first time. Still haven't decided which race to do, but by this time next year, I will have a 50K under my belt!
So if any readers know of any good 50K trail runs around the Midwest, southern Ontario or Pennsylvania, chime in, please! Thanks!
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