6 more days..

til the first benchmark of the marathon training, a half marathon.  Actually, it's not a biggie really.  I feel like I'm an experience marathoner.  I've done 4 and therefore have put in easily 6 months at the shortest to a full year in preparation.  The main thing with this marathon training is getting to October injury free and just "fast enough" to qualify for Boston.  The "just fast enough" will be a theme throughout the training.  With that I'm planning on just cruising the half on Sunday.  The competitive juices get flowing and I might actually end up pushing faster.  My legs would be trashed for the following week of training so I'll have to stay calm and just try and get into a rhythm.

I ordered some Hammer espresso gels.  24 in all which should last until marathon day.  I tried the Powergel double latte version on my long run last week and it was way too nasty sweet.  So that's out.  Strawberry-banana and Hammer espresso.  I bought one of those Helium Fuel belts at the running store and gave it a go.  Definitely easier to run with from a comfort standpoint than just the single running bottle belt.  The only drawback was getting the flask in and out of the belt.  It's really only for training as I won't need to worry about bringing water with me during the half or the full.

The weekend is over but I managed to navigate the spring time weather.  I was able to run in nice 70 degree weather on Friday for the long run and ride in some sunshine on Saturday.  Sunday was an easy day with some easy running miles sandwiched around a 30 minute swim.

Right now the forecast has a nice warm day for the half but because it's also a full marathon everyone starts at 6:30am.  Ugh...at least it will be fairly warm but not as nice if we started at 8am.  I guess I really only care about the weather on marathon day in October.

Oh another cool thing about the marathon is TweetMyTime. The chip timing system for the half and full is linked up with this company who automatically will update your tweet or facebook as you cross various timing mats and finish.  That's totally cool.  Gotta love social networking..