Well, it is finally Country Music Marathon race week and honestly this feels much different than any other marathon race week so far. Normally I’m in the final part of my taper (bouncing off the walls) and very nervous about my strategy or an ambitious time goal. For this race the “goal” is to actually run my slowest marathon so far. As the 4-hour pacer I’m supposed to finish the race between 3:59:00 and 3:59:59. This would be my slowest finish time by 6 minutes (3:53 in my first marathon – Chicago 2009) and slower than my last marathon (3:12 – NOLA 2012) by 47 minutes.
All of this leads me to a bit of uncertainty about what Saturday will be like. Part of me thinks this will be like a long, slow, training run and that maybe I’ll be able to enjoy a marathon for a change. Another part of me wonders how well I’m going to deal with being on my feet for almost 4-hours in the aerobic heart-rate zone when I have never done a run this long before (by time). Whatever the case, it is guaranteed to be a new experience all the way around, and I’m looking forward to it.
While this week will not be a complete taper, my total mileage M-F has been slightly reduced the past two weeks. For this week I’ll actually be taking Wednesday off in addition to my normal Sunday rest day. Today’s schedule called for 4-miles easy with 4 x 100m stride outs at the end. This morning was cool and windy with temps around 40 degrees. I wish that the cooler temps would hang around for a while, but weather predictions are for temps in the 80s on Saturday (Yuck).
Since I will not be running on Wednesday, I decided to do today’s run in my Saucony Hattoris. This was a solo run through Bellevue, and I really just made up the route as I went along. I didn’t really feel comfortable during the first two miles, so my pace lagged around 8:45. At the beginning of the third mile my legs finally started to feel good and my pace dropped to just under 8:00 for the final two. I finished up with stride outs in the Bellevue Church of Christ parking lot which felt a bit strange due to the strong winds. One direction I was getting a good push and the other direction was like running with a parachute behind me.
Overall, it was a good easy-paced run that I hope will get me ready for a harder effort tomorrow.
Beast Mode…ON!