Marathon Week is Here!

Here we are, race week! I slipped a little in my training the first week of the month – work has had a pretty crazy project going on, and on top of that I had something going on just about every night (although one of those things was our first Batavia Pub Run Group), but recouped it in the following two weeks – including racing my first 10k this past weekend at the Rochester Lilac Festival – that’s a training run… right? It is a little funny to me that I ran an Ultramarathon before running a 10k, but priorities I guess.

My target with this run is to get sub 4 hours, so 3:59:59 is my goal pace, although I am going to set myself a stretch goal of 3:45, which is a target pace of 8:35 for the 26.2. Given that I ran the 13.1 at just about 8:00 for the duration, it seems not 100% unlikely that it could happen, but is definitely a hard goal to go for. Strategically I need to think a little differently here – in the Half last month I just nestled into a comfortable pace, used my music to queue harder pushes, and walked the hills. With this one, I’m split between setting up a PacePro on my Garmin, or trying to stay in with the course Pacers. Right now I’m leaning towards sticking with the 4:00 pacer, and trying to push ahead towards when I’d normally hit the wall, but at the same time the wall is my fear. I tried this once before, and felt good most of the run, but in all honesty I think I may have exerted too much additional energy talking with other runners so staying with a pace pack is something I may not want to do. I’m also considering trying to stick closer to the 3:45 Pacer and just keep the 4:00 Pacer out of sight.

Whatever one I go with, this is likely the only Full Marathon I’m running this year, so I’d better make it count!