Just Sitting Around

Only two weeks left until Grandma's Marathon!

 A few of us TNC athletes who are running the race got together Saturday morning for the last hard workout leading up to the race, 13.1 miles at marathon pace. I mapped out a flat, paved course around Northfield and Dundas that would be our workout course for the day. The loop was just over 6 miles long, so we would run it twice with Coach Nichole manning (womanning?) a water stop at the halfway point to make it as close to a race simulation as possible. My Friday project was to procure some course marking materials and mark the course. I was able to legally acquire some spray paint and marked the trickier corners of the course to help make sure people didn't get lost. I also sent out  a map to everyone who was running so they could study up. Much of the race was on bike trails, which limited the possibility of wrong turns. Surreptitiously marking the corner right in front of the Northfield Police station was rather exciting.

In order to make the weekend as much of a race simulation as possible I busted out the Thermarest on Friday night, tossed and turned worrying about racing the next day, and woke up early so I could eat and give my food some time to digest. When I woke up it looked pretty nice out, but by the time I headed out the door to run over to Nate & Nichole's and meet the rest of the crew it was raining pretty hard. I wore my raincoat for the warmup so I was actually able to get warm, but still got pretty chilly in the rain the first lap. There was not much messing around, we got down to Sechler park, got our warmups off, shot a quick snapshot of our soggy crew, and got the workout underway.

A wet group having a bit of fun before the workout.

My race goal is rather ambitious (at least in my mind), to go under 2:40. This isn't a terribly meaningful mark except for the fact that it should be achievable for me. It will take over an 11 minute PR to make this mark though, so no easy feat. According to my workouts and my recent half marathon I should be able to run a 2:36, but I'm planning to play it a bit more conservative than that. I'll try to go out at 2:37 pace to bank just a bit of time for if I'm having trouble late in the race. On the other hand, if I'm feeling really good going out at a slightly faster pace will set me up to run a very good time.

I've done very little running at marathon pace, so dialing into that pace took a bit of effort, and throughout the workout I felt like I was fluctuating quite a bit. When I looked at my data afterwards though my heart rate stayed pretty stable around 165 and my mile splits were actually quite good, 5:57-6:02 for 9 of the miles, with one mile faster than pace and a couple miles slower, but still very close. With the warmup and cooldown I ended up with 19 miles for the day, a decent last long run in and of itself. My mileage has been much higher this spring than before any other running race I've done ever, so hopefully it gives my legs the durability they need for late in the race.

Sunday was the first day of my taper, so I spent most of the day sitting around, in a canoe, that I was paddling. Before Grandma's I have the Chippewa Triathlon, and the first leg of that race is a 15 mile canoe with portages. So I got one last long paddle in with my canoe partner Erik. Things went pretty well, so I think we'll be set to go come race day. I also sat around on a bike for a while, until Erik got a flat tire and I ended up running his bike back home since his repair goo was not up to the task of sealing the hole. The rest of this week will be pretty easy stuff besides a double pole time trial on Wednesday, hopefully the legs come around well and don't get too fatigued at Chippewa next weekend. Bring on race season!