2010 Goal of Sub 3:00 marathon (Read 8721 times)

Must have been my D-tag placement

That hole punched in the plastic is supposed to form the flat part of the D, it's not supposed to be visible.  Hope they get that squared away for you, you earned a very nice time for yourself.

Congratulations Chaloo. You've got some inner strength to pull out a 6:34 final mile when we all know what kind of hurt you were feeling there. Outstanding.

1+

 

Well, here it is:

 

Felt great from the start.  Needed to average 6:52 to get under 3hrs and the game plan was 6:45's for 20 miles and then try to hang on for dear life.
First 2 miles were real slow and by mile 4 I caught up to TMorin and his boy Andy from the Somerville Road Runners who were both gunning for a sub3 finish as well.  By mile 6, TMorin knew he didn't have it that day so he shut it down.  Andy and I agreed to go after this thing together and hold 6:45's for as long as we could.  Plan was working to perfection as mile 7-18 looked like this: 6:44, 6:42, 6:42, 6:39, 6:44, 6:52, 6:53, 6:39, 6:38, 6:53, 6:45, 6:44.  At this point Andy was hurting and he quickly faded.  Now the down side to a smaller marathon was that the last 8 mile I would have to go it alone yet I still felt very good about my chances though.
Amazing how quickly things can fall apart in a marathon.  By mile 20 I was really starting to feel it and my pace had dropped off slightly.  I felt dehydrated yet my stomach was wrecked due to all the Gu's and Gatorade, a tough problem. Mile 21 & 22 were run in 7:08 and 7:03.  At this point my my head was flooding with negative thoughts and I was having major double about a sub3.  "Who are you kidding, you are not in sub3 shape" was one in particular that was on a loop in my head.
Mile 23 a wonderful thing happened.  Some dude passed me going about 20 seconds faster per mile and I saw my last chance.  I locked onto the backs of his Brooks ST 4's and decided to hold on for as long as I could.  23 in 6:52 and 24 in 6:55.  I'm back!!!  At this point all I need to do is run the last 2.2 miles in under 16 minutes or a 7:16 pace. But now I was in a world of hurt.  I could no longer hang with this dude and I pushed mile 25 as hard as I could...7:23.  FUCK!!!  I'm going to finish in 3:00:20.  FUCK!!!
1.2 miles left and now the only way to get this done is to run this near a 6:50 pace which I hadn't done in almost an hour.  I can't see or hear the finish line and 1.2 miles may as well be 12 miles.  At this point I'm completely spent, cursing the marathon, cursing myself.  Is there a worse finish then just a few second over 3hrs?  Not today.
24 hours later I still have no clue where I was able to find the strength to do this but I forced myself to tap into the remaining gear that I had no clue ever existed in the human body.  I didn't care if I collapsed 10 feet from the finish line, I'm all in.  Mile 26 was run in 6:34, my fasted mile since mile 3.  I crossed the line in 2:59:25.  If not for the 2 volunteers beyond the finish line I would have dropped to the ground.
The human body is capable of amazing things and the marathon is a mighty humbling beast. 
1:29:10 / 1:30:18 splits

I forgot that I posted on this thread earlier this year.  No marathon for me until Maine 2011!  Congrats to those who made it and good luck to those still trying!

I feel ready.  Since about June to now has been one of the best blocks of training of my life in terms of mileage, workouts, consistency, recovery from workouts and races, and the results of build up races.  My total volume of training this summer was higher than in 2008, but it didn't feel like it.  Mostly it felt like just solid, consistent training.  The dog days of summer seem like forever ago now.

I certainly have PR fitness.  I just need to execute a PR effort.  My PR of 2:49:19 is 2 years old on the same course and that was definitely the best race I've ever run.  I will need to run a really good race to top it, but I think I've given myself every chance of doing it.

I put 2:47:30 in the swamp and I'll stick with that here. That's on the faster side of the range of what I think I'm capable of that day with a really good effort.  I'd be ecstatic with anything faster.  I'd be thrilled with a PR.

And of course I want to beat Thunder but all I can do is run my race and see what happens.

If I hadn't blown up in my last three marathons, then I would be gunning for sub 2:30. I think that's where the edge of my fitness is. But I'm not shooting for 2:30. I'm going to go out conservatively, and I think that I'll land somewhere between 2:32 and 2:36. 

Like mikey, I feel like I hit it in the sweet spot for this training cycle. My only concern is that I had no good races--I didn't race much and when I did it was on tired legs. However, I ran a couple of really nice workouts, and I finally got to the point where I could not only run high mileage, but process it.

I am excited to race, really excited.

Good luck to all the racers this weekend, looking forward to seeing you guys shatter your PR's.

DB - Please add me to the Goal list.  I'll be running the X-Country Marathon in Lithia, FL.  It's a trail race, but not technical and I think I have an outside shot at sub-3.

BTW, I recently changed my screen name from tooslow.

MTA - Race date is 11/21/10