Countdown to the Marathon - T Minus 14 Weeks

Training at T Minus 14 weeks (Oct 3-9)

Another week of training for the Disney Marathon coming up on January 13, 2013. My training log for T Minus 14 weeks (Oct 3-9):

Miles ran:  21.2 (6mi, 13.2mi, 3mi- hills)

Miles scheduled: 25

Cross training: Circuit Training x 1

Total miles run since training began: 190

My weight:  X-2 (weight seems to be staying the same; much to my dismay)

Running song o’ the week:  Pretty Girl Rock by Keri Hilson.

Audiobook: I’m about 1/10^th of the way through Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This is the first fiction book I’ve listened to while running. I’m enjoying it, but I find it doesn’t motivate me to run faster. Seems to be good for my long, slow runs. This is not the normal type of book I read (um, have you met me? I read/write/breathe romance), but expanding your mental boundaries is good, right? Right??

General Notes: So I totally kicked butt at the Crawlin’ Crab Half Marathon on Sunday (read about it here). Beat my half marathon PR by over 8 minutes!  Averaged a 9:15 min/mile pace, which I would’ve said was impossible for me, but evidently if I don’t listen to my brain tell me I’m tired then I can maintain a fast pace much longer than I thought.

All this PR stuff has me thinking about my goal time for the Disney Marathon.  In 2011 I ran it in a ridiculously slow time of 5:18:44 (12:09 min/mile pace average). But, that was my first marathon ever and mile goal was just to complete it. Goal accomplished. 

In January I plan to definitely PR. Barring some injury or other cataclysmic race event (like 90 degree weather or hailstorms), there is no reason why I shouldn’t have a faster time. I know I can trim at least 15 minutes off my time by not stopping to take pictures. Honestly, the amount of pictures I took in my last Disney marathon was ludicrous – some people take a week-long vacation and don’t take as many pictures as I did. I’ve included some (only some!) of them for your viewing pleasure here -- and yes, all of these were during my marathon.

The fear of public failure part of me wants to set a goal time of anything under 4:45:00. That would be an average pace of 10:52 min/mile. There should be no reason why I can’t do that. 

But a secret part of me wants to aim for under 4:30:00. That would be a pace of 10:17 min/mile. Significantly more difficult for me to maintain for 26.2 miles. Despite that I’m saying this in public blog, I find it very difficult for publicly announce this as my goal and begin to chase it. Maybe as I continue to train I’ll get more confident in my ability to reach this goal.

Or maybe I’ll just let it totally go and be happy with the 4:45:00 goal. Cuz I’m a coward.