Three Weeks, two days to Green Bay Marathon

Ran the longest run of my training this morning.  Also the last really long run of my training.  My plan was to run 23 miles at marathon pace.  7:50 per mile.  Right at 3 hours. But seems I was not quite up to it.  Ran 22 miles and just a few minutes less than 3 hours.  Pace was 7:58.  My longest previous run was 17 miles, so I think this was just a little too ambitious.  But the time is short so I couldn't wait any longer.  As my title says, 3 weeks and two days to my marathon.  The race is on Sunday, May 17.  

I wanted to make sure my 20 plus mile run took place more than 3 weeks before the marathon.  A Dutch study a few years back showed that most runners had not fully recovered from their last long run.  3 weeks is not enough time.  So rather than running on a Saturday, I took off work today, Thursday, to do my long run.  The weather this morning was great.  Cool but not cold.   Mostly cloudy.  Took it easy the first mile or so.  Mostly uphill so my times were a bit slow.  Hard to hear my splits due to the sound of traffic on the Creek Turnpike.  Even with the trees and the wall it was still a bit difficult to hear my phone.  Splits ranged from 7:27 to 8:33.  8 of my 22 miles splits were over 8 minutes per mile.  One was my water break.  Had a bottle of water under my car at about the halfway point.  Mile 11.  Another was at the turn around at 44th street. Walked about twenty yards.  Then at mile 21, I walked another twenty yards or so.   Mile splits 1, 2 and 4 were just over 8 minutes a mile.  These were mostly uphill.  Most others between 7:43 and 7:58. 

Now with just a little over three weeks to go, it is time to start my taper.  Same intensity but less distance. 

3 hours 25 minutes seems like a bit of a long shot now.  But it looks like 3 hours 30 minutes is still a possibility. 

Happy trails...

Training for Green Bay

A lot has happened over the last year.  The Route 66 Marathon of 2013 did not go as planned.  Extremely cold.  Temperatures in the low 20s to start.  The training that I thought would be sufficient was not sufficient.  Apparently running sub marathon pace training runs three times a week was not enough to run a sub 3:30 marathon. Rather I crashed and burned (froze actually).  4:20.  My slowest marathon ever. 

Got married in November of 2014.  A couple of weeks later I ran the Half Marathon at Route 66 in Tulsa.  Managed a 1:37:49.  Not quite as fast as a couple of years ago, but just a couple of minutes behind.  (I was not going to train for a marathon and plan a wedding with my wife to be.  So I chose the Half instead.)  And so feeling hopeful once again I have signed up for the Green Bay Marathon in May.  I think I will go with the Run Less schedule for a 3:25 marathon, though tweaked to match the lack of a track to do intervals on.  I will try to do some mile intervals.  And this time I will do some cross training rather than just resting on the non running days.  Cycling. 

I'll let you know how that goes.  And later this month training while on the road.

Happy Trails!