Marathon Sunday

Well, the week has arrived and thankfully I'm not in my typical grouchy taper mood this week, actually I was grouchier last week as I started to think about winding down. Why is it that taper always sucks? I didn't run another 82 miles last week, I'm not sure I could have handled that 2 weeks in a row, it was closer to half of that. I had a solid 13 miler on Sunday with the last 8 miles at above race pace and ended feeling pretty good. I got a massage today to flush out the last of the junk I've been accumulating!

I'm nervous about pacing Sunday. It's a tricky course being downhill and on pavement. It will be hard to hold back after a solid taper and running down. Part of me wants to run the first part faster than I normally would in a marathon because I can make up allot of time running down but no doubt the pounding down will beat up my legs and by 18-20 I'll be trashed if I don't hold back. My hopes are to hold back and pick up the pace the last 10k home. During training I ran up to 23.5 miles one day without any structural issues, however that was on trail and rolling terrain!

I hope to secure a spot to Boston in 2010 as part of my 2 year racing plan to get back to Kona! A solid marathon in Boston in April then Kona in October would be a great year in my opinion.

I need to run a 3:40:59 to get that spot. I know for sure I'm fit enough to do it, I'm running stronger than I ever have, we'll see how the day unfolds. All I know is that 3:30-40 will seem like a breeze compared to 11 hours at Ironman!