The Goofy Plan is paying off. Week #13 kicked in with a marathon. Only my second marathon ever...and it happened to be the second one this year!Nice 50F sunny weather at start. I was fortunate to have Bill pace me for the first 19 miles as he ran a two person relay with his wife.
We strolled past the 1/2 marathon point at 1:55:42. I was excited to be that far at a sub-4 mile pace and feeling good. In my other marathon I crossed the 1/2 way point about 9 minutes slower...and not feeling as relaxed.
Through 19 miles I was still feeling strong and positive. As Bill stopped, I continued to run with Jeff who we kinda picked up around mile 4. He was running the same pace and taking short walk breaks with us.
Mile 20 came at 2:58:39. I realized 10:00/mi would get me in below 4 hours. Wow!
Mile 21, 22 came (and went) with little fanfare or problems. I still wasn't hitting the dreaded wall. I was just focusing forward. As we passed 23 miles and walked through the water stop, I tried to calculate what pace I needed to maintain a sub-4 hour finish. I wasn't figuring it out so I finally asked Jeff with about 2.5 miles remaining on the course.Jeff said, "12 minute miles. You're gonna break 4!" We were still cruising along around 9:15/mi.
Chip time was 3:55:37. About 26 minutes faster than my January marathon. Maintained a 9:00/mi pace on a gorgeous morning.Goofy here we come!
iRun podcast prior to the marathon.
