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Saturday I hit the road for the longest run of my marathon training plan (also the longest of my life) - 20 miles. I finished in 3:14:26, a 9:42/mile average pace.

I’m pretty happy with the overall time, but a little surprised what the overall pace worked out to be & to see the lack of consistency in the splits:

1. 8:57
2. 8:56
3. 9:42
4. 8:50
5. 10:51
6. 8:27
7. 10:13
8. 9:23
9. 8:35
10. 8:24
11. 12:34
12. 8:33
13. 10:15
14. 11:34
15. 9:51
16. 9:57
17. 10:01
18. 10:52
19. 9:30
20. 8:30

This time leaves me with ~45 minutes to do ~6 miles if I want to crack 4 hours (~9 minute miles for the mathematically impaired). Granted, those 6 miles will probably be some of the toughest of my life, but I think I stand a fair chance:

• It was warm out for this run (mid 70s)
• I wasn’t running at race pace
• I stopped at home mid-way to refill my fuelbelt (see mile 11)
• I was frustrated and walked a couple times after running into unexpected deadends
• There will be less hills during the race
• I felt good throughout the run
• I never hit “the wall”

The big thing I gained from the run was confidence. Now I know I can finish a full marathon. My original goal was to run in 4:30:00 - I’m certain I can make that. My secondary goal was to beat my brother’s time of ~4:08:00 - I stand a fair chance at that. My ultimate goal would be to best 4:00:00 - it’s ambitious for a first marathon, but based on these results think it might happen as well.

There’s still a couple things I worry about though:

• I’m still afraid of hitting the wall - it would have actually been nice to know what it was like if I’d hit it this run. I would have preferred to avoid discovering it as a race day surprise.

• I’m afraid of the weather being wet and miserable.

• I don’t like running routes I don’t know.

Other than a snake sunning itself on the path during the run, the only other significant thing about this run was the mantra I’ve been playing over and over in my head of “I’m feeling good” held true all the way to the end. I like feeling as good as I do at mile 4 at mile 18. It helps my brain to tell my body “I can do this”.

From here on to the race in 19 days, my training tapers off. The “long” run this weekend is only 12 miles. (It will probably be boring to me.) I’ve completely stopped playing soccer for fear of any injury I might pick up there. The only minor bump in the path of my training is that archery season starts this weekend & I’ll want to spend all the time I can in the woods.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 3:48 pm and is filed under running. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.