The marathon is this Saturday.
We've been doing our usual "boot camp" strength training workouts and yoga, but not much running. Last weekend was a bust because Saturday was a family gathering at our house - no time to run. Sunday we spent at the Twin Cities Marathon, cheering all of the fabulous runners there. Then off to Warner Nature Center for the annual open house.
There are lots of marathon stories, at least one per runner. One story is about a runner who planned to do a Boston qualifier time of 3:20. Training went well but the day of the run, it just wasn't happening for him. So he took a break at mile 20 and told us his story about calling his girlfriend at mile 10 to pick him up. It didn't happen. So he wanted her to pick him up at mile 15. Again, didn't happen. Now he's at mile 20 and decided to just finish the marathon. I think he finished around 4:00. Isn't that great? I would love to do a 4 hour marathon.
I sympathize, I've run a couple of marathons that I didn't want to finish. A couple of years ago at TCM, I didn't think I would finish under the cut off of 6 hours. It was really hot. There were runners laying in the grass on both sides of the course, all looked awful. I felt awful. The first aid people on bicycles were tending to some and offering boullion cubes to those still on the course. At mile 20, I was ready to end my misery, why bother? Loren was there and talked me into continuing to run. The hardest part was running up Summit Avenue, pushing to go faster, in the heat of the day, to make up for the time I lost going so slow in the first 20 miles !!!
Tapering has been very easy, maybe too easy. I hope I remember how to run.
