Monday, May 16, 2011

May 16th - #31 in the books

So may 15th I ran my 31st marathon, which tied me with my father. This was also my 10th marathon of the year! My expectations were hopefully a new PR or maybe sub 3. The weather was not an issue. Gun goes off and it's right to business. Hit first mile in 7:09 as planned then settled into my goal pace of 6:45/6:48. Hit first 5 in 34:16, ok so far. Next five miles in 34:04. Felt good and seemed to find a groove. The next five was 34:09, again pretty consistent
The next five is where the wheels slowly started to wobble. Split was 34:51. Fatigue seemed to be creeping in. Started to rethink goal and simply try to finish sub 3:05 giving me my 10 minutes for my Boston registration. The next 6.2 miles is where the wheels really began to come off. When I reached the 26 mile marker I realized I needed to kick to get under 3:10, so I sucked it up and gave all I had left. Crossed line in 3:09:45. A not so pretty sub 3:10. Ok so what went wrong? two things: the first was I switched my normal day off of Monday to Friday which meant by that Friday I had run 10 days in a row. I oppose any type of running streaks. No more than 6 days in a row, you need a day of rest. Why now I run 10 In a row was just a careless mistake. The second mistake was I did not carryout a proper taper. I finished the week with 83.11 miles(includes marathon). Should have run 30-35 miles less. I know better, just didn't listen. Moral of this is that I did not set myself up for success. Ran just a little to much therefore I was tired from the start. This marathon is NOT a failure. I learned a valuable lesson and therefore I won't repeat the same mistake. Live and learn. Still find great enjoyment in running 26.2 miles.

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