I've got to say, who knows what I'll run for a time or whether I'm capable of running faster than the masters course record, 55:19 by Todd Coffin in 2007. Even with the winter we've had and training a lot on snowshoes, treadmill and the pool, I feel more ready for this than I ever thought was possible last year at this time when I started running again. It's hard to believe that my first month of training last February was 10-20 miles a week and fighting to run sub 18 minutes on a flat 5-k course last March.
One thing I did last year that helped was racing a lot. Way more races in a year than I ever did in a year. I lost most of them, including two marathons. But, it all had a purpose, to get in shape for Midwinter 2018. One year of training.
It all started with the Eastern States 20-miler. My longest run to that point was about 12 miles. I ended up running 2:09 something in the 20-miler, over 20 minutes slower than I had run in 2012. Soon after I did my first 5-k back. Flat course, barely broke 18:00(17:51) Rough.
A couple more weeks of training I went to an fast course at Unity College I had run a bunch of times and run sub 14:50 twice on. I ran 17:29, ouch.
10-mile race a couple weeks later I got lost in the 5th mile and ran 3 minutes longer than I should have, but still ran an an hour. With Sugarloaf marathon only a few weeks away I was starting to wonder if I was ready or not. Other than the 20 mile race early on my longest runs were 16ish miles.
Ready or not, Sugarloaf marathon. Ya, I wasn't ready, but I ran ok, 2:35:41, for second and my first loss in a marathon in Maine in 7 marathons. At least a friend of mine won and we broke the out of state guy who was up front with us.
After this I decided I needed to race a lot and ran races from 1 mile to 10-miles to get ready for MDI marathon.
Long runs for MDI went better. I got a bunch of runs close to 20 miles and even a 24+ miler. I was ready. I went out as planned, and hit halfway in 1:14:31, only a second off what my plan was. Still 90 seconds behind leader, but I thought I could go get him. Felt great and sped up as planned. Then the humidity hit me hard and most of the last 8 miles I walked/ran to a second place finish, 2:37:57. Another marathon in Maine, second loss.
Jumped right on the wagon and raced my fastest 5-k of the year a week later, 16:08. Ran a bunch of local races, and a couple out of state xc races that didn't go great, but they didn't go terrible either.
The surprise was the Epic 5-k in negative degree temps and running 16:32 off a lot of snowshoe and treadmill running.
Mostly the workouts the last three weeks have surprised me. It's only been a month since I've raced, but it feels like forever and I'm super excited to see where things lay now.
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