National Marathon

Okay this post is week late but I've been busy...

Last weekend Anne and I toed the line in front of the Wash DC Armory for the National Marathon. We would tour parts of DC I had never been to and enjoy beautiful clear skies and little wind all morning with 34-45 deg temps. The result? A whopping 9 minute PR for Anne and nearly equal 1/2 splits. SUPER!

We began a marathon build up in January switching Anne from 3 days a week of running to 4 and jumped right in with a 13 miler January 1st. Most of last falls Richmond marathon base was still in her legs so we built quickly with long runs coming every 2 weeks. Runs of 15, 18, 20 , 20, and 22 followed with each consisting of a 30sec walk break at each mile marker with an average pace per mile around 10:00. For race day after reading Galloway's suggestion of a 60 sec walk break I decided to compromise and do 45 second breaks on race day. No pre -determined mile pace was set up and we just ran home she felt. This resulted in us running in the 9:30's with the 45s walk break included. The miles ticked by and her freshness remained. She hit a gel at miles 5, 9, 13, 17, and 20 which allowed her to keep from bonking out. Reaching the half around 2:05 gave me confidence that the sub 4:21 and 4:15 goals were a definite possibility and maybe even 4:10. With a couple pit stops and some tough hill miles in the 2nd half we ended up running a slightly positive split but managed to run the last 10k in under 60min and the last 2 miles at sub 9:25 pace.

Officially we finished strong in 4:12:04 which was fast enough to make my own legs hurt.

The house projects have really geared up and my "one focus at a time-obsessive personality" let those take priority over my running. So I only logged 49 miles last week and a mere 35 this week. :-(

For some reason I always fall in to a 3-4 run days a week pattern and end up averaging like 12 miles per run. Not sure why. I did manage a 4 mile AM ---busy work day--- then 16 miler PM run home on Friday which really wiped me out.

Now with March nearly over it is time to get in shape! Higher mileage, more frequent runs, hill work, and some speedier days to come I swear! Next race Bull Run 50 April 18th.

at least the house is looking better :-)