Sweet Victory

12 days before the marathon, my mind becomes fixated on the things over which I have zero or minimum control. On the plus side, next week I'll do a good job of focusing on the things I can control, but for now, there's no time like the present for needless worrying. In no particular order: 1) I might be getting sick. I have one of those tiny tickles in the back of my throat... Now, it could be the cold, damp weather or it could be the fact I ran five miles in the cold, damp weather. And even if I do get a cold, I'm still 12 days from the race. But still: I worry that I'm getting a cold. What I can do: Eat chicken soup, OD on Zicam. 2) The weather might suck come race day. I've said it before: early November is an iffy time in Central PA. It could be 50 and gorgeous, 65 (like last week) or 40 and rainy (like today). I'm on the BQ bubble here and anything less than the meteorological median has the potential to derail my dreams. What I can do: Don't pay att...

Week 1 of a 3 week taper is coming to a close. It's only a mini-taper at this point.. The six milers all became five miles, six days of running became five and the twenty miler becomes a 13 this weekend. Last weekend was the final twenty miler (of five)... The only thing that comes close to the satisfaction of finishing a marathon is finishing all of the 20's in my plan. For this one, the goal was 7:45 - 27 seconds slower than my goal marathon pace. However, I elected to do this one with a sub 3 hour marathoner who doesn't own a Garmin, which meant that I spent three miles mumbling about things feeling a bit too quick before I said, "Ah, the hell with it," and went all in. For the first 18 miles, we averaged 7:26. A monster hill (and 18 ill paced miles) lead to an 8:11 in mile 19, but I recovered nicely on the last one to finish the whole thing with an average of 7:30 - 15 seconds faster than the plan, and just 12 seconds slower than my goal pace. A breakthrough w...

Because my life is spinning quite quickly now, I'll just give a random list of observations... 1) This is my final peak week of marathon training, culminating with my fifth 20 miler this weekend. (Goal pace: 7:45) 2) However, this week all of the "out of towners" are in town for a week's worth of meetings and dinners. I need to fit 4 runs over all day meetings and 2 dinners this week. Hmmm... 3) I've set my goal for the Harrisburg Marathon: 3:11 - 7:18 pace. This would be a seven minute improvement from last year and five minutes under what I need for Boston. Also, it puts me within shouting distance of 3:10 if I'm feeling spunky at mile 20. 4) I doubt I'll feel spunky at mile 20. 5) While I thought I had my blood sugar plan in place, I ran too low during last week's 15 miler (7:35 pace), which means I'm still not done tweaking, which is a bit of problem since I'm almost done training. 6) I wish Harrisburg weren't so late in the season. I...

Disrupting a marathon plan for a 5k isn't really a brilliant idea. But I was curious to see how I'd do in the same race I did last year, when I ran 20:11, mostly rested, though a week after a 1/2M. This time around, I was 5 days removed from a 1 mile time trial, and 48 hours removed from a 20 mile run. So, I was far from rested, and this course is far from flat. In the end, I was pleased. I finished with a 19:52, 12th out of 140 overall, and I repeated as the 35-39 AG winner. I figure, fully rested with a good course, I should be around 19:25 or so. Even 19:52 was only 5 seconds off my 5k PR. This also means the tune-ups are over until the marathon. I've got four more weekend runs of 15, 20, 13 and 9 miles, and this weekend's 15 will be @ 7:40 pace. It's time for the final grind. :)

I took a vacation day today. However, it wasn't a sleep-in, watch tv, drink beer vacation day. Oh nooooo... since we're going out of town this weekend, I sacrificed a vacation day for a 20 mile run (my 4th of 5). Five days after my last long run, it left me a bit, uh, crunchy (to coin a Dave phrase) but with an average pace of 7:52, we'll call it successful. After that, though, I mowed the grass. And after I post this post, I'm off to the dump with the rest of our trash from our basement remodel (yeah, I know - we finished this like six months ago). Truth is, it'll be nice to be a cubicle slave again tomorrow (and I use that term loosely.. it's hard to be a slave with free Gatorade just a few feet away).