5 Days Until Grandma's Marathon!

Five hours was my time in my “first marathon” at the end of Ironman WI last year (well, 4:58 to be exact). That Ironman went as planned until I hit the run. I swam and I biked exactly what I thought I could. When I was taking off my bike shoes in T2 and putting on my running shoes, the feeling was returning to my feet and I was realizing that they were pretty beat up. My feet were the sorest part of me. I took off on the run and was running around 8-9 minute miles. I maintained that pace, but I had to stop and walk every few miles because my feet were so sore. That dropped my pace to over 11 minutes / mile, and I was just barely able to break 5 hours on the run.

People have commented that Grandma’s isn’t my first marathon because I’ve done an Ironman. Well, I really don’t want to count my marathon during my Ironman as a marathon. That was just my run during Ironman. Grandma’s is my first official stand-alone marathon.

This past weekend, Pharmie and I went camping with her side of the family. I got to talking with her uncle John, and I have my marathon strategy all figured out. I’m going to try to ease into the run and go out slow - that’s the way I run most of my training runs, so I’m used to running like that. I’ll try to keep the first 2 miles around 7:15ish. By mile 5, I want to be running 7 minute miles. I’ll hold that pace, which I’ve been able to do during my longer runs. Then, around mile 14-16, I’ll re-evaluate. At that point, I hope to pick up the pace ever so slightly. Here’s how the race could end:

- Horrible day: I could totally bonk, and finishing well over 3:10.

- Decent day: I could start falling apart, but still hold on to run sub 3:10.

- Good day: I could maintain that pace, and end up around 3:03.

- Great day: I could start picking it up a bit, and finish sub 3:00.

I’m used to pushing myself a little around 60% of the way through a run, and I know that’s a lot to ask during a marathon. I’ll have to give it a shot.

John and I talked this over as we were looking at my training log. He’s a runner, and he’s ran Grandma’s before. He agreed that this plan looked pretty good for the way that I run. He didn’t think it made sense at first, but then, when he was looking through my splits during my long runs, it all started to come together and make sense for my running style.

But this is still all theory. How am I going to find extra gas in the tank at mile 20? We’ll put this to the test in 5 days. Five days. Whoa.

In other news, here are five photos from the camping trip this past weekend:

Young-ens on my shoulder


The girls at an Amish garden


Hangin’ at the pond, looking for frogs


Walking through the freezing creek


Me taking down the light at the campsite
when we were all packing up