Masters Running

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Redlining the next marathon - Tall's Crazy Marathon Strategy (Read 151 times)

    As you know I always put it on the line, even gulp for a marathon distance. Crazy to do but incentive to commit to a plan that could materialize. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well this will be my fourth marathon. First one 2 years ago was 3:09 and qualified me for Boston. The second one was Boston, a beautie in 3:02 but tough due to the crazy weather last year. Six weeks after Boston I ran Ottawa again and ran 2:58…I blew up on the last 10K and lost 8 minutes. The most painful marathon of them all so far. So my fourth is coming up………and my running has come into it’s own. So what to do? As all of you know nothing is certain when you are running a marathon. The weather could be nasty, right now the morning calls for 6C at 7am, rain and 25K winds from the SE. One second your feeling great the next your hammy twinges or your legs turn to lead. The plan can always change on race morning, like mine did in Boston last year. One can minimize those occurrences by running smart or increase them by running stupid or what I like to call redlining. My training and my coach tell me the smart thing to do is try and run a 2:52:30…but my craziness tells me this is the marathon to go sub 2:50. Two and a half minutes does not seem like much…but to me it could well be the difference to redlining and blowing up and having a painful finish. The plan is to run 1:25 to 1:25:30 to the half and then maintain pace till the last 9K which is right at the top of the big hill in Ottawa. A nasty place where I have struggled in the past two marathons. It runs thru the experimental farm in Ottawa…an up and down wasteland where your mind starts to think about giving up. It has this nasty little loop of about 1K where the turns are tight and your body feels every little twinge as it pivots onto itself. Now I have run it 3 times in the last 5 weeks with L, all at the end of our 38k’s so I think I am ready. At the 9K mark, it will be time to step it up and start running sub 4 minute K’s to bring it home in that sub 2:50 time slot, making up the 30 seconds to 1 minute I gave up at the start. The marathon’s never a given and as my coach says you have to give the distance respect and I do…I just hope it gives it back to me and allows me to run my dream. Crazy Tall… We shall find out in 6 days.

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      Your "9K" is just past the 20 mile mark for we here in the South. You'll know if you have it in you to pick it up then, and you've been training on the course and hill involved. Go for it. Oh, and ah, Tall, do not describe a 3+ hour marathon as "nasty." We may accept "disappointing" from a gifted runner like yourself, but nasty hurts. Cry Evil grin grins, A
      Masters 2000 miles
        Prefontaine would be proud. You're all about guts, Tall. Go for it!
        Quit being so damn serious! When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change. "Ya just gotta let it go." OM