marine corps marathon Archives - Page 2 of 10 - Preppy Runner

Last week before NYCM, I wrote a post about my marathon time goals. Let’s do that again, eh?

GOALS

Let me start out by saying that I don’t understand at all when people have bad races and then say they were thinking they let people down. I’m not sure anyone’s ever thought “Wow, I’m really disappointed in her for not meeting her time goal.” Should I not meet these goals, I’m only letting myself down.

But I’m prepared to have a great race.

Let’s do this backwards. Last year, I had 4 time goals, as it was my second marathon, and I knew I’d gotten faster but I wasn’t positive what my body could do. This year, let’s do some time goals and some non-time goals.

Time Goals

C Goal: PR from last year’s 4:19:56 at NYCM. That was a 9:55 pace, and I’ve been training around a 9:30 pace. As long as I have a decent race, I’m pretty sure I got this one.

B Goal: 4:09. This is a 9:30 pace, so I’m fairly confident in this one, too.

A Goal: Sub-4. (Or bust.) This has been my goal the entire training cycle, and I’m not positive how realistic it is right now, but I’m still going to try.

Non-Time Goals

Negative split. I’m usually terrified of not having enough left, so I start off a little slower and then pick it up. I know some people are afraid of “not having enough left in the tank,” but I’m afraid of starting off too fast and then flaming out.

Finish strong. I’d love to finish feeling as awesome as I felt at NYCM last year, but I will crawl over that finish line if I have to.

MCM RECAPS

I tweeted and asked for your MCM recaps, and you delivered! Below find some recaps I plan on reading and re-reading today and tomorrow. If you have one, please link to it in the comments, and I will update this post with your links.

Lauren from Health on the Run (who, holy shit, crushed this race at 3:18:09)

Spectating recaps from Jess Runs, who’s also running it this year. 2010, 2011. If you’re spectating, these might help you.

A recap from Gwennie Pie from 2008

LET’S DO THIS. If you’re doing MCM, what’s your goal? Any sub-4-or-bust advice?

Thursday: I’m so excited!

Sunday: I’m so scared…

I’m currently SO excited for the marathon, I could explode. Come Sunday, I will be so scared, Jessie Spano-style. But I’ll have 26.2 miles to burn off those initial nerves.

My job can be really intense, but when I get to talk marathon at work, I can’t really complain. Yesterday was my client New Balance’s spring preview. There’s all kinds of awesome stuff coming out this spring that I will talk about at a later date, but for now let’s talk marathon.

If you feel this way, you can come back later next week.

photo 4.JPG

Inspired by graffiti artist Jimi Crayon, NB released a limited-edition New York City Marathon edition of the 860v3.

photo 3.JPG

Each borough is represented on the shoe, and there are awesome details like the skyline on the left, and a little New Balance logo in an apple on the back.

LOVE.

After the press preview, we had dinner with the New Balance team at CraftBar. I sat across from a coworker who has run Marine Corps twice and absolutely loved the race. She gave me some great spectator tips. She said that if you tell someone to go to the Key Bridge and the Mall, they can see you four times. Once when you come across the Key Bridge, then they go to the end of the bridge to watch you come down the hill through Georgetown, then they hop on the Metro in Rosslyn and take it to the Mall to watch you as you come down both sides of the mall.

Mom, you got that?

Screen shot 2012-10-25 at 8.02.39 AM.png