Maria's Running Blog

Today was my last marathon paced run before Rotterdam. Plan was to run total of 12 miles, but somewhere out there I miscalculated, and ended up with almost 13. It was very warm, in the 60s, and there were tons of people in the park and on the sidewalks around it. Few times I had to stop dead in my tracks just to navigate through people!

Ran about 4 miles warmup, and started on the tempo segment. Garmin was acting up again, and I really couldn't trust it, it was in and out.First tempo loop at about 8:05 pace, feeling okay, but not in the mood to go faster. At that point, I saw a woman running in fron of me, maybe 30m ahead. She kept very good strong pace, and I tried to keep up with her. At London Zoo, she moved into the road, because it was impossible to run on the sidewalk, and I followed her, even though I am usually terrified to run on the road with the traffic, because I can't see the cars coming from behind. But I was running behind her, and it gave me some peace of mind, not to mention made it easier to run without dodging people. I followed her for the next 3 miles, and my average pace dropped to 7:56. But I could fel that I was working a bit too hard, and the last 0.5 mi. I backed off a little to a more comfortable effort. In the end, I averaged 7:58 pace for 6 miles. Then jogged home around 9:30 pace (more people dodging). By the end, I felt very tired - I also didn't drink or eat anything on this run. Total time 1:47:24.

I'm starting to worry about the weather being too warm for marathon in Rotterdam. As of now, forecast for next Sunday is 61F and sunny.

ran very easy, 48:16 (8:46 pace). I felt surprisingly good after yesterday. Maybe my loss of fitness is at least as much psychological as it is physical. I have only 5 days to go...

Late run after work. Today was the last workout before Rotterdam, low end threshold repeats 4x1000m with 200m jog recovery (about 1:15). Felt a little sluggush at first, but then began feeling better. The effort felt the same, although the pace was getting faster. I did 4:50, 4:40, 4:38 and 4:26. Overall, felt good and recovered quickly in between repeats.

Now just some easy running until the race with possible one more day off (Friday?).

This is probably my last run before the marathon. It felt good and easy, time was 43:29 (8:41 pace). Flying out tonight. My main concern now is not to tire my legs out at the expo tomorrow - I love marathon expos and tend to wander around longer than I should.

Another big concern is the weather. Opposite to Boston, Rotterdam is forecasted to be very warm and sunny, with temps in the 70s, and given 11 AM start, we're bound to run at the peak of it. I've never run a marathon in such warm conditions, although I trained for one in the summer in NJ. Looks like my time goal is going out the window, and my adjusted goal may be to run faster than 3:45 to qualify for London next year (and Boston). They're introducing new drinking system this year, where water cups will have sponge lids on them with 2 cut-outs for drinking. This should allow for less spilling and using the sponge lids as, well...sponges. Sounds interesting, but water stations are only every 3 miles, which may not be enough in the hot weather (although it looks like they are adding 2 more stations - see below).

Today I received the following from Rotterdam marathon: