I am feeling better about this marathon in terms of my ability to meet my goal. Just to bolster my vague sense I took a look at my total training miles. Note – I am going for a sub 5 hour marathon just as I was last year but last year I came in at a disappointing 5:25.

2005 – 196.5
2006 to date – 251.5

I still have long runs of 15 miles, 20 miles and another 15 miles as well as track workouts and shorter runs to go. Total left to go on the training program is about 82 miles plus interval work so my total miles in training on race day will be over 300. That’s more like it! The Amazing Hip’s parrot predictor is at 4:49 right now so that is another thumbs up.

I had a good track workout tonight running fast 800s with a rest interval in between. These were supposed to be Yasso 800s with a marathon goal time of 4:50 (so that’s run 800 meters in 4:50 followed by a slower run for 4:50) but it didn’t really work out that way due to the way the Garmin works. I really shouldn’t be such a slave to that thing but I am – so there. What I ended up doing was running this:

Lap          Distance         Time           Pace
1 -             .61 miles     4:50           7:58
2 -             .55 miles     4:50           8:44  (grr-pacing is bad;change method)
3 -             .50           4:20           8:41
4 -             .50           4:18           8:36 (grr-rest too long;change method)
5 -             .50           4:14           8:28 (rest 2 min instead of 4:50)
6 -             .50           4:21           8:43 (rest 2 min)
7 -             .50           4:17           8:35

Then it was almost dark so I stopped which means I missed 1 of my intervals. But I did the ones I did kind of fast.

So what does that mean? Who knows, but I feel pretty good! Tomorrow I swim.

quick update –
I just looked at my log files and saw that someone found my blog searching for “mom forced me to wear dresses and get my nails done”. Well gosh – I’m so sorry and I hope you weren’t too seriously traumatized!