Marathon Week

It’s marathon week!  So it is time to relax and enjoy the last few days of another training cycle. I find myself envisioning my own future and reflecting on all the training that I have done in the past 5 months. I watched “Spirit of the Marathon” yesterday morning. Paula Radcliff (one of my favorite runners) accurately says in the movie that anything can happen when one runs 26+ miles. Hopefully, good things will happen in Chicago this Sunday. I have trained hard and am ready to run my best marathon. But, no matter what happens in Chicago, I will still be thankful for the opportunity to be running after 25 years. I still remember the day that I went out and ran for the first time. It was in June, 1986. That day, I never imagined that I was going to be here ready to run my 13^th marathon.  I need to be thankful to all the people that have made this ride much more enjoyable. Having qualified for Boston back in May gives me luxury to be more aggressive and chase faster times in Chicago.  The plan is to improve my previous PR. I will be aggressive but careful. I will let the pacers do their job until mile 18-19. I will tag behind the pacers and run a relaxed pace for as many miles as possible.  I know that faster marathons are always run with negative splits so I need to save energy in order to run fast in the last 6 miles.

My training has been good in the past 2 weeks.  My legs feel fresh and my endurance is very good. The marathon pace runs have been good and that boosts my confidence about running a good race. I ran 4.75 miles today. Tomorrow morning am doing 7 miles (2 easy, 3 marathon pace, 2 easy). I have scheduled a massage for tomorrow afternoon. Wednesday will be a rest day and I will do some short intervals on Th.  Friday is off. The day before the marathon am doing 2 miles in Chicago.  

Thanks for reading!