Twenty

Hit the road for a 20-miler this morning, hoping to see how everything held up and discern just what might seem realistic for me going 26.2 My plan was to go 16 and hover just under 9:00/mi, and then at 16 hopefully have enough to step up the pace into the mid-low 8:00's, emulating my race day plan.

The first part of the plan went pretty flawlessly - 8:56/mi easy through 16, and feeling pretty good. I slowed, though, when I wanted to increase speed, finishing my last 4 miles at a 9:02 pace. Good for an overall of 8:58/mi - that's a 4 hour marathon pace, which is the ideal goal...but I couldn't have sustained that for another 6 miles. Probably would have gone between 4:05 and 4:10 if it were race day.

My legs felt like friggin' tree trunks afterwards, and I promptly hit the jacuzzi bathtub full of cold water and fired up the jets. Felt great, minus the shivering and, y'know, parts that don't feel great.

I'm pretty satisfied with this run - it gives me my first indication of what might be possible. My nutrition was on point, and I executed my plan about as well as I could have - I might try to slow even a shade more the first 16, maybe on the plus side of 9:00/mi to save some in the tank the last 10 miles. Not sure yet how to assess where I can improve, or if another run of 22 miles next week, after hopefully a solid week of training this week, will just leave me better prepared to execute a 4 hour marathon. I think most of my questions won't have an answer until race day, and I'll just have to do the best I can in training until then.

My hard hill work last week paid off - the 5 or 6 ass-kicking hills on my route, which 2 weeks ago left me gasping, were nothing insurmountable today at all. Encouraging.

And lastly, filed under "obvious" - 20 miles is a long damn way, holy shit.