Marathon Goals and other stuff

It’s here! The Portland Marathon is this weekend.

I’m excited to finally run the hometown marathon. It has happened 3 times since I moved here and every year couldn’t make it happen. This year, I’ll be out there! It will be my 10th marathon.

I’m excited to run a “big city” marathon –it’s been a while. I guess it’s been since Eugene in May 2010- I’ve done quite a few other races since then, but all trail runs or in small towns. This will be fun.

Zach will be out riding his bike along the course getting pictures and handing off water. It’ll be great to have a personal support crew. There are quite a few other friends in town spectating and running as well. I can’t wait to see them out there and celebrate with them after.

I haven’t really trained specifically for this race, but I feel pretty well trained. I built up a ton of endurance training for the 50k last month, and I’ve kind of tuned up over the past 4 weeks with speed work and lots of road runs. I’ve also done 2 trail races as part of the Portland Trail Series. Even though I’ve been running a lot, I still don’t know what to expect on race day.

I’d be very happy with a finish in the 3:45-3:55 range. My slowest marathon time is 3:55 and I’d like to not set a new PW. Not that I’m ashamed of that time at all, I mean it’s still really solid! And to be honest, I’d be happy with a sub-4 finish, PW or not.

So there it is! Pretty boring. I don’t know if I’m past the PR days forever but certainly for now I am. I really just want to have fun out there and run a solid race and not embarrass myself. :)

I’m currently sitting here on my couch watching the Simpsons and icing my foot. It’s been kind of sore since my last long run. It’s nothing major and only hurts after a run, not during. I’m sure it will be fine! Something always crops up in the taper. Especially since I haven’t really been tapering at all… I ran quite a bit the previous two weeks. So I’m taking some much-needed rest days, finally.

Well that is it for now. I’ve been meaning to post more but I come up blank every time. I have a lot of miscellaneous thoughts and worries floating around in my head but I can’t seem to find a way to express them. There are a lot of big things going on in my life and they are not all good. It’s overwhelming. I don’t know if my blog is the place for it anyway. I think what I DO need my blog for, and what I need running for, is an escape. Running is stress relief, it’s fun, and it’s something to focus on. I need all of that.

So I’m going to give this marathon my all and enjoy every minute of it. It’s going to be great. And I have a personal photographer out there so the race report will be spectacular. Good luck to everyone else racing this weekend!