9 weeks until the Boston Marathon - Week in Review

With only a mere 10 weeks until the most anticipated marathon of the year, I am starting to feel excited and ready.  I've been wanting to run the Boston Marathon since I first attempted this crazy distance back in the fall of 2009 - Twin Cities Marathon.  After that race, I was looking for another marathon to improve on, and for some idiotic reason, I picked the Nashville Marathon in the Spring, as opposed to the Boston Marathon.  Luckily for me, I had a great 2010 spring season and set some amazing PR's on the track.  But, I should've entered in the foot race that starts in Hopkinton.

The Famous Boston Marathon Course

Last year I was entered in the Boston Marathon, but had the misfortune of catching pneumonia and getting injured.  If all goes well, I will be ecstatic to start and cross the Boston Marathon Finish line in one piece.  I will also be jumping out of my racing flats if I finish the race with a PR.  The number one goal is to run the Olympic Marathon Trials Standard of 2:18:00 or faster.  The second goal would be to PR, which is very likely since training is going well; but as all who know what it's like training for and racing a marathon, it is just as unlikely to not run a PR.

This week was a great week, when compared to last week.  I had a whooping 52 miles the previous week, since I was sick and took 2 days off, and came back slowly.  So, I finally feel like a "real" runner and completed a decent mileage week while racing in Boulder, CO for the USA Cross Country Championships.  I had one "speed" session on Wednesday, which wasn't that fast.  I'm not completely sure why I ran so slow, but I got the volume in - 8x1000m with 200m recovery jog.  I only averaged 3:09 (which probably was the slowest I've ever run that workout in), but I might've felt slow because it was so early in the morning.  I started warming up at 4:45am, and did some light drills and started the first interval at around 5:15am.  It was pretty dark at Highland High School, but the street lights and permaglo helped a little bit.  I think I haven't started a workout that early in awhile, so it was a little shock for me.  After a few more weeks, I'll feel more comfortable running that early again.  Besides, it's getting lighter, earlier as well...

So training and racing looked a little like this:

Mon - pm. 8 miles
Tue - am. 4 miles / pm. 12 miles
Wed - am. 2 mile warm-up 8x1000m (3:11, 3:08, 3:09, 3:08,
Thur - pm. Strength training + 8 miles
Fri - am. 6 miles
Sat -
Sun -