The 20 Miler
I was so happy when I saw the temperature on Saturday morning. It was a balmy 46 degrees, perfect weather for running. Well that might be true, but it sure as hell isn’t perfect weather for standing around waiting for everyone else to show up. I volunteered to show up early to help set up. Each group needed to have people there to sign people in, assign them numbers, etc. So I run up the hill and arrive just before 5:30 to find no one from my team there, and I thought that I was getting there late since our leader had asked for help starting at 5. So I ran a little more and ran into our leader. Set up didn’t take too long, so I got to stand around for an hour while we waited for the start. It was very windy at the park which made it so much colder. The worst was my hands since I didn’t have gloves. But I survived to get to the start.
There are usually 4 or 5 people with whom I run on a regular basis, all of whom were there at the start. Around a mile into the run there was a decent sized hill that I decided to sprint up and I would regroup with my friends a little later. Instead, one of them caught up with me, so I ran the next 14 miles with him before losing him somehow in Walnut Hills.
Overall I was VERY happy with my run. I did 20 miles in about 2:45. In Columbus last year I did 20 miles in 3:05. And the year I broke 4 hours, I did 20 miles in 2:59. Everyone is trying to convince me to try for a 3:30 on marathon day, but I am not having any part of that. My previous best is 3:59, so that would be 29 minutes faster and it would be 39 minutes faster than my last marathon and an hour faster than the pig last year. I am planning to start with the 3:50 group and see how I feel around mile 20 and then speed it up there if I am feeling good. I really want to do a great last 6 miles since I have never been able to do that.
I am probably more nervous about this race than any other since I have trained so much for this. I really want to do well. I’d honestly be happy just finishing, but in my heart of hearts I want to break 4 hours again. Given that this training run was much harder than the actual pig course, I think that I have a great shot at it. Now it all depends on what I bring to start on marathon day. I am going to take it easy from here on out to try to be in the best shape possible.
