Much of the same old story for marathon preparation for the last week or so, building miles and stamina. The club cross country meet was a great success with my daughter coming 35th out of 35 in her race. She was disappointed, and although I was immensely proud of her for taking part in her first ever race and finishing, I could tell she was a bit upset although she put on a brave face. We had a long chat, and thankfully she hasn't been deterred. She is even more determined to practice and train with her dad to improve for the next time. The club has it's underage training on a Monday and she is really enjoying it, the last few weeks have been varied, not just running, and there is a massive amount of kids taking part which is great for both their health and the future of the club. looking at them I often wish there was such a facility when I was younger in my area.
I am still unsure at this late stage what time to aim for in the marathon. A few months ago my target was a sub 3.30 at best, bearing in mind my PB is 3.37. That moved a few weeks ago to hope for a 3.15. I am currently running my tempo runs at 6.45, given that Gary says they should be run 10 seconds faster than marathon pace, and while they are not 'easy' nor are they difficult given my 13 miles at 6.30 or so pace. My long runs, 18.5 last Sunday, are at 7.25 pace and I ran the last 4 at negative splits of 5 seconds faster at 715 -7.20. This is 30 seconds slower than goal marathon pace as per Gary, which again, would indicate a 6.55 to 7.00 pace. I really enjoyed the speedwork session this week, which although tough, was a great workout, and when I went for my slow 6 miles yesterday I had to really make an effort to 'slow' the pace to a 7.20 min mile, which I suppose is what I am running my LSR at.
All this would indicate a possible sub 3.00 marathon, and a few people I have spoken to have suggested that they feel this would be very achievable for me, but I honestly never ever considered that this would even be a remote possibility for me, and it scares the shit out of me. Do I go for it and make a balls of it and ruin my marathon, or play it 'safe' for say a 3.10 (again, more than I ever considered I would ever be able for), and then finish strong and always wonder if I had pushed myself, did I waste the chance of a sub 3? Given that the wife says no marathon next year, and I am happy to agree, this very well might be my best and last chance to ever achieve a sub 3.
I have entered the Athlone 3/4 marathon this Sunday and I am planning to run it at 6.55 to 7.00 pace. I say planning, as apparently the course is quite hilly, so I might have to adjust my expectations as I go. Peter made a very good comment at speed training on Tuesday, "don't leave your marathon in Athlone", so I won't push it too hard, but I would like to see how I feel after the pace and distance in an event atmosphere.
Mileage for the last few weeks has been steady at between 55 to 60, with 250 for September in total. I feel really strong, no colds, no injuries, fast running etc. Dr Phil Maffetone reckons that an athlete will show his peak performance when he has just passed the point of being over trained, and will start to show signs of this overtraining shortly after peaking and suffer a rapid decline in performance and be prone to injury and illness as a result. Hopefully my good form lately is not following this pattern.
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