Well, I think I defined a new level of crazy (or stupid)
today. This is the sort of thing that
happens when you give someone like me too much idle time. All my long runs on the treadmill this last
week made me think of lots of things,
“What’s for dinner” “When should I hang my Christmas lights?” “I wonder if I could run a full marathon on
the treadmill?” “I wonder if I could run
a marathon PR on the treadmill?” You
know, those kinds of questions.
Yesterday on my run I thought about running 26 miles on Thanksgiving
morning just for fun, then I thought I should just do it tomorrow since I feel
good now. It has also haunted me that my
marathon PR was 2:51:30 at Des News and that was after my (at the time) biggest
mileage week as a “training run”. I can
run 6:30 pace pretty easy and always think I could just run 6:30 pace forever,
so why don’t I even have a marathon time to back that up? Basically because every time I run a Marathon
setting a PR by a minute or 2 never interests me, I always go out too hard, blow
up and end up feeling bad for myself for weeks after.
So anyway, all this made me devise a crazy plan for this
morning, wake up early go to the gym and run a PR marathon. Wow!
Who thinks like that, especially after running by far the furthest mileage
week I've ever had (not quite 140 miles this week)? Apparently me. I couldn’t sleep very good last night, first
sign this was the real deal, I woke up and 3:30 and decided to get on with it
so I headed to the gym. I wanted to make
it as honest as possible, which meant when I hit the start button on my Garmin
I couldn’t hit stop until I was done, I knew I would have 2 treadmill resets,
one at mile 9 and one and mile 18 (to keep the splits easier to track) and
wasn’t sure how much time this would cost me.
I decided to use those 2 resets as my only “aid stations”. I also wore my HR monitor to keep me honest
from doing something crazy like, (jumping off the treadmill for a rest while it
still went). So anyway, I felt that
these measures would make it honest so I could feel good about it.
Started at 9.2 mph 6:31 pace then at mile 5 I bumped it to
9.3 to try and make up for the resets, did that again at mile 14. The resets only ended up taking about 15
seconds so not to bad. My HR went pretty
high at first and I thought maybe I wasn’t going to make it, by the first reset
though I was feeling pretty good and decided I would make it. By the second reset I was actually feeling
better and better the longer I went, my HR even was dipping down a few bpm too,
not sure how I got feeling better after 20 miles. So at mile 20 when I realized this was really
going to happen I kept bumping up the speed every mile thinking I wish I could
finish all marathons like this. I really
wanted to break 2:50 so I pushed pretty hard the final 2 miles.
In many ways this was the best marathon I’ve ever done, no
bathroom lines, no long bus ride, no standing in the cold, and it started right
on time. Well, 4 minutes late for one
last bathroom break.
Does it count as a real PR?
Who knows? I say yes, but it’s my
run and my blog so I can say whatever I want.
26.2 miles in 2:49:26 6:28 avg pace. A 2:04 PR.
| Distance | Time | Avg HR
| Max HR
| | 1 | 6:32 | 153 | 167 | | 2 | 6:31 | 160 | 162 | | 3 | 6:31 | 161 | 163 | | 4 | 6:32 | 161 | 163 | | 5 | 6:31 | 162 | 164 | | 6 | 6:27 | 162 | 165 | | 7 | 6:27 | 163 | 166 | | 8 | 6:27 | 163 | 165 | | 9 | 6:27 | 163 | 167 | | 10 | 6:46 | 162 | 168 | | 11 | 6:31 | 162 | 165 | | 12 | 6:31 | 161 | 164 | | 13 | 6:32 | 160 | 162 | | 14 | 6:31 | 159 | 162 | | 15 | 6:27 | 160 | 162 | | 16 | 6:29 | 160 | 162 | | 17 | 6:25 | 159 | 162 | | 18 | 6:23 | 160 | 165 | | 19 | 6:45 | 159 | 163 | | 20 | 6:31 | 159 | 161 | | 21 | 6:27 | 159 | 164 | | 22 | 6:27 | 158 | 161 | 23
| 6:23 | 158 | 161 | | 24 | 6:23 | 158 | 160 | | 25 | 6:19 | 159 | 162 | | 26 | 6:14 | 163 | 165 | | 26.2 | 1:06 | 165 | 167 | | Total | 2:49:26 | 160 | 168 |
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/129577165
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