This Week's Forecast - Milestones with a Sprinkling of Reality Check

The past week included a few milestones in my marathon training. I ran 20 miles for the first time. That is the longest I will run before the marathon. I also ran my standard Green Lake Outer Loop (3.2 miles) at an avg pace of 7:34/mile, which has been a goal for a while (not 7:34 exactly - I was shooting for 7:30, but it's close enough for me). And finally, I managed to run better than my target pace for the marathon on a "distance" run. I call "distance" anything that is noticeably longer than the usual 3-5 miles that I run and can easily maintain a fast pace on. Tonight I ran 6.2 miles (with some hills) at an avg pace of 8:43/mile.

The reality check part is that the avg pace for the 20-miler was 10:30. Now I don't try to push the pace on a day where I am running further than I have ever run, so I didn't expect a fast pace. On a day like that, the only goal is to complete the distance that I set out to run. Considering the weather and the fact that Sharon and I were running together, it is pretty amazing that we did complete it.

Another dose of reality came with tonight's run. I was running less than 8-minute pace for a while tonight, but still only netted out to 8:43 because of the hills, and a bit of fade at the end. I felt like I was going fast, and I was trying not to obsess about the numbers while I was running. It is just a bit disappointing when the numbers aren't what you expected. But I did run 20-miles on Friday and race my bike Sunday, so maybe I should cut myself a little slack...

I know that there will be all the other people and the adrenaline factor on race day. But...it is a big gap to fill.

Getting the first 20-miler under my belt has definitely helped. I feel much more confident about the marathon overall. I am just now finally honing in on the timing goal of under 4 hrs and realizing how hard it will be. I think I will try to push the pace a little harder on the next (and last) 20-miler. We'll see how it goes.