Marathon Week

Sorry for the hiatus from posting--life gets busy sometimes. I still have a forthcoming pace report on the Rochester Healthy Human Half Marathon, but this week is race week.

Training for the Chicago Marathon was pretty mediocre. It took me a while to feel like I could start pushing it--I was still dealing with some knee pain and a mild case of Achilles tendonitis, and by the time I started feeling truly healthy, I was over halfway done with training and had a hard time getting motivated to amp up my training.

With a week to go before the Chicago Marathon, here's a little pros and cons list of my marathon training:

Pros
While my overall mileage was low, my average per week was pretty consistently 40 miles with a high of 51 and a low of 28 (week 1).
I had some solid workouts including a great tempo run and a 6 X 1000m workout where I consistently hit my splits.
I'm almost 100% healthy. The Achilles and left knee are slightly sore occasionally, but overall they rarely hurt.

Cons
This is the second lowest average weekly mileage I've had for a marathon.
My training plan was not nearly as intense as the one I followed for my PR marathon in 2012.
The one race (Minnesota Half Marathon) I ran was over six minutes slower than my  1/2 Marathon PR.

So there it is. Here's my traditional A, B, and C goals. I have yet to reach an "A" goal for the marathon, but who knows? Maybe Chicago will be it.

A - Break 2:58
B - Break 3 hours
C - Break 3:05.

Thanks to all my readers for your encouraging words thus far. I am still looking to raise a little over $200 more for my Team World Vision goal to provide clean water for communities in Africa. Check out my fundraising page to find out more!

Happy Running!