Goal Setting Decisions

These past few weeks of training have been nothing but great. I guess I was off to an emotionally rocky start with feeling like I was slow and out of shape but, as always, my confidence grows with each week. I am consistently putting in 40+ mile weeks and feeling great. Last weekend I did a 17 miler, probably a bit too fast, but my average HR was lower than I expected espically for the hills out at Todd's Road. That run was probably the most painful I have had so far. I think my body was just getting used to the longer pounding of the pavement. I recovered quickly and went on a 30 mile bike ride the next day and felt great.

This weekend I have a double weekend of a 1:40:00 run today and 1:40:00 run Sunday. My friends Lynn and Dave convinced me to run in town with the "Chevy Chasers" this morning. The group (all running the same route) broke off into a few different smaller groups and somehow I ended up in the lead group. Oops. The runners I was with are stronger runners than me and the first 5.5 miles were more like a tempo run. I was glad when we stopped for water and regrouped with everyone else. We ended up back at Starbucks (11 miles) so fast that I still had 10 minutes to run so the coffee would have to wait. I ran a few minutes with Lynn and Dave (both running Columbus) and we talked about goal times for the race. I hadn't thought about it much yet, but as we get closer to the race I start to wonder what I am capable of. Dave and Lynn want to go 3:45:00-3:50:00; both of those times would be an improvement on my last marathon of 3:55:xx. I know I am training smarter, and I feel a lot more fit, and faster than when I trained for Louisville. 3:40:00 would be my dream time but, do I really want to try for an 8:24 pace? I know I will be happier with anything faster than Louisville, but I know I won't be happy if I just try for 3:54:00.

6 weeks to figure this out...