I'm a little less than 6 weeks from running my first marathon and the training has gone really well.
I finished the triathlon season with a great race at Waterman's in October last year, running a half marathon PR over the course of the day, and then hit a bit of a lull with running.
The marathon build started pretty soon after that, and the running was going well, but I wasn't seeing the dramatic drops in pace that I did last year -- which makes sense, since last year, I was losing 1-2 pounds a week (on purpose) over the winter and my muscles were super pumped to make my much lighter self essentially fly.
I was feeling sort of bleh about my paces and goals, until I looked back over a few months and realized that while the drops weren't dramatic, they are still happening. I've had a great new running buddy who has kept me accountable and joined me for 8-10 miles of most of my long runs, which definitely helps break up the hours.
We met up to run in CA over winter vacation and ran comfortably in the 11's and then two weeks ago, for my 16 miler, we held a pace that was in the 10's. How could I have not seen that progress happening? It's huge!
With this reassurance, I'm pretty confident in my goal to break 5 hours for the marathon (11:20-ish pace) and would like to actually achieve a sub-11 pace (4 hrs 45 minutes).
If some race day magic happens and I run 10:30's (4 hrs 35 minutes), I'll take it.
Before that though, I have to run my 18 and 20 milers and stay on top of my foam rolling.
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