Quote Originally Posted by SJCzar View Post
I survived Sunday's marathon and actually enjoyed it quite a bit.

The weather was perfect - mid 40s and mostly sunny. It was an out and back route and there was some wind on the way back but nothing too bad.

I didn't make my under 5 hour goal that I had in mind but I'm ok with that. The rail to trail surface was much kinder on the body but also seemed to be harder to keep up the pace that I would have needed to maintain. I did walk through the aid stations (I'm just too uncoordinated to drink and run), and took a few 15 second walk breaks in the last 5 miles, but otherwise I kept plodding along. At about the 5 mile mark I started running with a 60 year old guy who does 6-8 marathons a year. I probably slowed my pace by at least 45 seconds to a minute per mile to run with him but it was well worth it. We talked the whole time and he shared lots of good stories with me. The 10+ miles that we spent together went by much quicker than had I been on my own and really added to the whole experience for me.
I would say you did better than survived - you pretty much ran the whole way, and aren't really sore. Congrats!! It makes a HUGE difference to find a running buddy, even if they are running slower. It really passes the time.

Today, intervals. 8 x 1 min at OMG pace with 2 min "rest" at "goal pace" (to make your goal pace feel slow, I imagine ). Tomorrow, easy run. Sunday... 20 miles. I get hungry just thinking about it. This week the HUNGER set in with a vengeance - I have been hungry all the time, it's difficult making up the deficit of the 2000 calories burned on the long run. It'll be like this for another 2 weeks, I'm sure.