Its an omen!

[Bateluer]

There's another marathon I'll be running in tomorrow morning, the inaugural IMS Arizona Marathon. I visited their health expo this morning to pick up my bib, timing chip, packet, and tee shirt. Low and behold, my bib number is 26. A marathon is 26.2 miles long. Its gotta be an omen. This might be the run to let me break the 4hr threshold.

Edit - My Time: 3hr 59min 44s. See last post for comments.

 

[Megatomic]

Awesome, have a great run tomorrow. :thumbsup:

 

[newb111]

I got bib number 26.2 so I win.

 

[Bateluer]

Man, its cold out. Bout 40 out right now, according to weather.com. And its going to DROP to about 35 by race start, stay around 35 to 40 until 930-1000. It's likely going to peak in the low 50s by the time I'm finished. Guess that means I'm bringing the gloves and wearing my North Face pull over.

 

[StageLeft]

Too bad it wasn't 27. I predict you bonk at 26 and literally cannot make it the last 1/5th of a mile Good luck, though!

The marathon I did had temps just like the one you're talking about and it was fricking perfect because as I warmed up and the run got going I could dress down a bit. That's really nice running weather.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Skoorb
That's really nice running weather.

I hate the cold. I kept my fleece north face jacket on the entire run and my gloves on for the first half.

I did pretty well, though their mile markers seemed to get inaccurate as the run progressed. This occurs with all marathons and longer runs because runners weave a little on the road. But this one was way off, at the finish, my Garmin listed 26.75 miles. Which I completed in 3hr 59m 44s, a personal record and under my goal time of 4 hours. I probably could have done a little better, but I was having an issue with a bowel problem between miles 18 and 26. Not sure if it was caused by the Cliff Shots I was testing out during the run or the fact that I had 2 cups of tea yesterday. Hopefully, it was the tea and not the Cliff Shots. I never really felt like I was hitting a wall during the run, and didn't really start to crave food until mile 25.

I kept with the 3:45 pace group for the first 18 miles, but I had to stop and use the jon, and when I got out, they were out of sight. Unfortunately, I lacked the energy to catch up at that point. I stayed ahead of the 4hr pace team until about mile 24, and I ran with them into the finish.

And they were giving out free MGD 64 to runners at the end. Only one though.

The next long run I do, I'll run with the Cliff Shots again and see if the same effect occurs. I know if I drink a few cups of tea in a single day, the next day will see some explosive movements into the can.

 

[GenHoth]

Beer at the end of marathon? I don't think I'd be up for booze after 26 miles

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: GenHoth
Beer at the end of marathon? I don't think I'd be up for booze after 26 miles

After running 4 marathons, I've determined that there are roughly 3 stages one goes through at the end of a marathon.

Stage 1 is the 'Why hell did I do this!?' stage
Stage 2 is the 'Huzzah, I've completed the run, Yay for me' stage.
Then we progress to Stage 3: Ravenous hunger.

 

[Megatomic]

Hell, after 10 miles I'm ravenous. I can only imagine how hungry I'll be after 26 miles...