HahaRiiiiiiight wrote:
ghost_coach wrote:
No... no... I'm not racing. I have no desire to pull a "Sarah Crouch" in Eugene... unfortunately, I've been injured with a serious groin and quadriceps strain since January. I'm gathering intel for one of my athletes that will be racing tomorrow. The goal is sub-2:40, and the training indicates a mid-2:30's fitness, so we're excited to see the hard work translate to race day!
Best wishes to all involved, and HahaRiiiiiiight... go get that sub-3:00 (tailwind on the way in if forecast holds)!!!
I'll go ahead and chime in here on the race since I eluded to my goal a bit earlier in the thread. Weather was perfect for running; my training was just ok (fewer miles then planned, missed a key long run) so the plan was to start conservatively and then pick it up in the second half as the race went on (the "plan" for every marathon of course haha). As the previous guy said the 3 hour pacer went out hot (6:40-6:45 pace) - this wasn't my first rodeo so I wisely let him go, trying to hold myself back and run 6:50s for the first half. Ended up hitting the half maybe slower than planned at 1:29:40, but I felt good and was able to continue splitting 6:45-6:50s. After 22 miles or so things got fairly tough but I was able to run 6:41 (24), 6:36 (25), 6:37 (26), 5:55 pace kick finish bring it home in 1:29:10 for a 2:58 finish.
I was definitely spent crossing the line but a part of me wonders if I left 30 seconds to a minute out there (given I could run 6:30s - high effort with HR rising - at the end)? Maybe, although a 30 second negative split is rather ideal and overall I was pretty stoked on the time.
To the guy above that ran 3:02 - definitely a solid debut! You will figure out that last 10K and hopefully dip under 3 your next go-round...
Congratulations on the negative split, and sub-3 finish... beautiful control and execution in my opinion. Well done!