Another Shot

It's been over a month since I've posted a blog, but I've resolved to do better.

Sometimes, things don't go as planned. Last fall, I was hoping to train hard enough to set a new personal record in the marathon. Also, I was planning on that training cycle being my last try at a marathon PR. Training for a marathon is time consuming. It's not just the weekend long run that can chew up close to three hours--it's also all those days trying to carve out an uninterrupted hour for a training run. Put on top of that some more time for injury prevention exercises, and you're looking at a significant commitment.

During my peak weeks of training for a marathon, I'm putting in between seven and nine hours just running. That doesn't count the time spent getting ready for a run, supplemental exercises, or driving to run somewhere else. So, I figured last fall would be my final go at setting a marathon PR.

Things didn't go as planned. You can read about it in my PNC Bank Milwaukee Marathon race reports. The short version of those reports is that the race was mis-marked, and as a result I ended up covering around thirty miles.

Coming up short of a PR would have been one thing. I told myself that I'd be satisfied with giving it my best effort and coming up short. The thing was, if the course had been marked properly, I would have set a PR. Instead, my official time was over four hours (I haven't even looked it up).

The only silver lining was that I set a new half marathon PR at a build up race during the training cycle, but otherwise it was pretty disappointing.

So, I decided I'd give a PR attempt another shot. Running on an erroneous course didn't seem like I had a fair attempt at a PR, so I set my sights on a PR at Grandma's Marathon. You can read what happened there, but again, things didn't go as planned. Some sort of gastrointestinal issue severely curtailed my training, so by the time the race came a PR was out of the question.

I could have called it quits after Grandma's. Maybe I should call it quits, but I can't help but think I still have one more PR marathon left in me, and I still want a shot at it. I decided to give the PNC Bank Milwaukee Marathon another shot, mainly because it's late enough in the season that I could recover from Grandma's and still have a good training cycle, and because we have some good friends in Milwaukee.

My official training plan started after I finished coaching the Burnsville Cross Country summer running program, but during that time I was running with them almost every day, so it wasn't like I was doing nothing until the plan started. I don't think I'm in quite as good of shape as I was at this point in my last training cycle, but my mileage is high (for me) and my workouts are getting faster.

 I'm crossing my fingers that everything falls into place--that I avoid illness and injury, that the course is properly marked and measured, and that the weather is favorable for fast times.

Run well.