Going in to this marathon, I have the least clear understanding of what my current abilities are. Yes, this has been a particularly crazy-making taper, thank you for asking. On one hand my legs might be incredibly fresh and loose for the first time in ages (thanks mega taper, massages and yoga) on the other hand, the bulk of my mileage was in July and August. And it's now... October.
With that being said, these may be more loose expectations instead of goals. Who knows, maybe I'll surprise myself. Every time I've been confident in a finishing time for a marathon I've been wrong anyway, so what does it matter. :)
A Goal: Low 4:20s. A ten minute pace would have me in the low 4:20s. If I don't have any injury niggles, no walk breaks, and feel strong forever this'll be my unicorn goal for the day. My second and third best marathon times are 4:25 and 4:26, so I could surely use those times to prevent me from taking walk breaks toward the end when even the ends of my hair hurt.
B Goal: Sub 4:30. 10:20 pace is pretty close to what I ran my long runs at. I'm hoping the cooler temps will make that pace doable. The pace teams are 4:00, 4:15 and 4:30 so I might start with this group in hopes I can pick it up.
C Goal: 4:35. 10:30 pace. Anything 4:35+ means that I either had to walk due to injury or my conditioning didn't hold up with my spotty training the last month or two. If that happens I'll implement the "just keep swimming" chant in my head, and be thankful that I get to see my mom, Kyle, and his parents super frequently on the course to help propel me forward, and just be happy that I'm able to go out and run 26.2 miles at a time. Even if it's not pretty.
As far as I know, there isn't any tracking for the race. The site is here. It looks like previous results were posted here, so maybe you can get some splits along the way! And if I have your number and you'd like, maybe I can convince Kyle to text you along the way. Although I'm sure the texts would be something along the lines of "just saw her, she's wearing green" or "she gave a wave, I think that means she's going to PR" or something equally as unhelpful (I'm thinking of Danielle's husband texting me during a marathon way back when with information that didn't help me know how she was doing AT ALL, lolz.)
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