This will be my first full marathon in almost two years and have been tossing the thought of beating my previous PR of 3:47 at the Rock N Roll San Diego marathon in 2009. This was my first marathon and my goal for that race was to finish under 4 hours and was able to accomplish that with no problems. Besides being at sea level my strength level was pretty consistent throughout the race maintaining an 8:40 pace all the way through. The following week I headed to Steamboat Springs for another Marathon with Team In Training and basically spent that whole week recovering from the first marathon. Amazing to look back to see it took me 6 days to recover from my first marathon as to now I can knock out 26.2 miles no problem and still feel I can run another 26.2 miles the next day. Well sadly to say I finished 4:23 bonking the last mile into town, so I ended up walking most of the last mile and mustered up enough getup to run the last .2 miles into the finish line. Luckily as I finish it started hailing, so no time to celebrate with everyone we just headed straight to the car and back to the hotel. I was hurting physically big time, pretty much walking around like an old man for the next few days. The last marathon I ran was the Boulder Marathon end of 2009 and DNF'd that one due to illness. I was just getting over the flu and thought I was healthy enough for the race, well after mile 18 I felt like crap! I felt light headed and could tell I probably was a few shades whiter than normal. I sat at an aid station for probably 30 minutes before deciding I wasn't feeling much better and caught a ride back to the finish line. I was off to a good start with this race and was hoping to PR up until mile 16 and went down hill from there. 2010 I shied away from doing any marathons and stuck with a couple ultras and half marathons. I PR'd my second half marathon at Heart and Sole with a 1:40 finish time. Knowing that I'm definitely on track to PR this next marathon if I choose to.
So why not go for gold and PR Colfax? Probably because I have bigger plans for this year with completing my first 100 miler. Also signed up for a double marathon two weeks after and would be nice to be fresh for this race. Granted two weeks of recovery is more than enough to go from a marathon to a double marathon. The last 100 mile attempt I ran 60 miles and I was back at running within 3 days and at my normal pace in 5 days. Like any race I'll probably make my decision that morning and go from there. Ultimately I would like to finish strong and not have to worry about struggling the last few miles to the finish line. So far my training runs have been all strong and hoping that will carry through to race day.
If I do decide to PR this marathon it will be between 3:25 and 3:30, which will be a pace between 7:50 and 8:00 minutes. Guess we will find out May 15th!
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