Great Run: Another PR!

My time was 3:17:29 at the National Marathon: another personal record! I went into this race wary of whether running so fast would be a good idea. After all, this is meant to be a tune up race in advance of the Boston Marathon in 3 weeks.

I metered my time carefully up to the mile 20, though still averaging better than the 7:38 pace I kept at my previous marathon (Marine Corps Marathon, Nov 2006) and PR. After pulling up through the 100 foot steep ascent of the Calvert Climb, between mile 19 and 20, I slowed down a little for my legs to recover. At one point the 3:20 pace group (that's 7:38 minutes per mile) caught up to me when I felt strong enough to kick it into gear and push hard the last 6 miles. Nothing held me back. I finished the last .2 miles in an all out foot race with another marathoner who eked out a nose ahead of me.

Of all the marathons I've run so far, none have been so satisfying. Plus, my legs remained strong throughout. With one exception (MCM 2002) I cannot recall any marathon where I finished so strong. One way to interpret this is that I didn't push myself hard enough, which means this was a good tune up run! Exactly my goal. I just need to make sure I don't slough off in my last couple of weeks of training and I will get another PR at Boston.

Next up: Cherry Blossom 10 miler, Sunday Apr 1.

Long Run: National Marathon

Training's been going well. I'm at about 60-80 miles per week. With 2 back-to-back 19 milers and some respectable hills in my workout, I made a spur of the moment decision to run the National Marathon on March 24 (tomorrow).

The idea is that I need at least a couple of good, long runs in my workout leading up to Boston, why not a marathon? On closer inspection, the National Marathon course looks a bit more challenging than Boston with a very challenging 200 foot climb between mile 19 and 20 (the Calvert Climb out of Rock Creek park) that looks more formidable than Heartbreak Hill, at least on an elevation profile. I had naive hopes of attaining a PR but this looks like a pretty challenging course. I'll just aim for a respectable run.

I tried explaining the "need a long run, why not a marathon" to the TV viewing public .

(I'm 2:15 in the clip, the Kensington marathoner)
http://video.nbc4.com/player/?id=84839

Oh, well. It's pretty plain I need to work on my television presence.

We'll see how the long run goes.

-Em