It's not a lot, but most of the hay is in the barn (Read 891 times)

Taper is my favorite word. With just under 600 miles year to date, I set out for my final pre-marathon long run this afternoon. I dropped my son off at his house, and headed for the course. The weather was really nice, I'm guessing mid 50's to low 60's with lots of cloud cover and a light breeze. On my normal long run course, I have an opportunity to refill my small water bottle about every seven miles but that would not be the case today. Instead of my usual 8 ounce bottle, I carried a 20 ounce bottle of water and figured that would hold me until I could grab a replacement when I looped past my Jeep at about mile 14. I have been having problems maintaining a suitable long run pace, so I made a conscious effort to start slowly on this unknown course. I plotted the course on RA, and the elevation looked pretty intimidating. The fact that I ran the hilly Applefest HM last weekend helped to keep my pace slow, and I would soon find that the hills of Manchester would also help me to slow down. I was working on turn by turn directions, like Mapquest gives you . I also had a pretty crappy map from the Marathon's website. The first half of the course had some challenging hills, some short and steep and some long gradual hills. I spent my walk breaks reading directions and checking the map for upcoming turns. I only had one very minor messup, so the first fourteen miles were pretty uneventful and I found myself picking up more Sport Beans and water and heading for the second half. I was still doing pretty well when some questionable directions caused me to miss a turn just before mile 20. I was suspicious of the route I was on, and finally found a local to confirm my suspicion. I figured the detour added about a mile to my run, which was tough to take. I got back on course and plodded along, finally making it back to the Jeep in 4:37:24. I called my sisters to let them know I was still alive, because their cell phones are the emergency contacts on my dog tag. I tore into the closest drive-thru, and ordered a McBurger, fries and shake. When I went to pay for them, the young woman said she upgraded my fries to medium as a meal deal and saved me a quarter. I said "you're very kind, thank you", but I was thinking "if you don't give me my food in about five seconds I'm going to bite you." Those fries tasted like God was working the fryolator. When I mapped out the course I took (including the detour), RA says I covered 27.85 miles at just under a ten minute pace. It won't make me an honorary Kenyan, but it does give me the feeling that I can complete the marathon in three weeks barring horrible conditions. Just gotta stay healthy for three more weeks, and put my low mileage training plan to the final test. http://runningahead.com/maps/33e0b71460924c78ba04e9b3ae67396c It's pretty cool clicking on the elevation button, it takes a while to pull up the data for 27+ miles. Not flat, not fast, it is USATF certified, but no monkey attacks.

you ran 27.85 miles! wow. good luck for your marathon - not that you'll be needing luck after preparation like that!

Well, you did your long run, and those extra miles made those french fries taste all that much better!

It won't make me an honorary Kenyan, but it does give me the feeling that I can complete the marathon in three weeks barring horrible conditions. ...

Three weeks? Nah, you can probably do it under 4 hours!

Ed, you scared the monkeys into submission! Wow, you are going to be amazing in your marathon! k

don't feel like s*%# on the big day.