Sunday, December 09, 2007

Commiting to Marathon #11 - 52 mile week

It's official. I am signed up for the Last Chance For Boston Marathon in Dublin (Columbus), Ohio, which will be #11. My e-registration is complete. My hotel room, airfare and car rental are all booked. If I BQ, I may go to Boston in April, depending on how Jen's pregnancy goes. I don't want to think about Boston now. I just want to do the best I can in Dublin.

The decision was tough on which race to register. I learned of a contingent from my local running group that are going to Tampa. I spent a great deal of time pondering if I should go back to Tampa today. I even pontificated Austin for a brief moment.

However, I did not want to go these larger city, further away marathons by myself. The wife will not be traveling with me and she is my #1 fan. Plus, it is a bit late to get choice flights and hotels for these larger marathons, so I bagged it. Much more expensive proposition and I didn't want to go it alone. A quick 1-night trip to run a marathon on a fast, flat looped course suits me fine in February.

Most importantly, besides it being the most convenient, I decided on this marathon to revisit an interesting part of my past. Little known fact is that I lived in Dublin, OH from 1998 to 2000 as I began my career with The Scotts-MiracleGro Company. So it is a bit of a homecoming for me.

Despite the challenging wind, rain, ice and snow that hit us this week, I hit 52 miles out of the 54 planned. Tuesday's run in the wet, blinding flurries was not all the fun (I could barely see since I had to do it at night) - but I ran 7:30's for 10 miles. Thursday's 11-miler at 6:00 AM was frigid. The highlight of the week was Saturday's 20-miler at the Aboretum. See splits below.

Off to Connecticut for work on a 6:40 flight to LaGuardia tomorrow AM. The target is 47 miles while away from home until Thursday this week. On pace for 2,098 miles in 2007.

4 comments:

MB said...

That sounds like a big week for you. Keep up the good work and you'll get the qualifier and maybe we'll see you in Boston!

yumke said...

A very strong 20 miler! good luck with the high mileage through the holidays

jen said...

Cool- I'm excited to hear a first-hand account of that race. It seems like it could be real good or real bad, depending on the person and the day. Good luck in your training and happy holidays! :)

Darrell said...

Congrats on the decision to run Last Chance in OH.