Preparing for 10/10/10

Wow, I can barely believe that the Chicago Marathon is one week from today! As in, in one week, I'm DONE with the marathon (one way or another!). Crazy!!!

What's that? You didn't realize that Taylor and I are training for a marathon? Actually, that doesn't surprise me, since 1) we haven't been running as much as we should and 2) I haven't really blogged about it at all. But that doesn't change the honest-to-gosh truth that in about 154 hours, we will cross the start line of my third marathon, Taylor's first, with a goal of finishing the race in 4:00 flat.

To start getting pumped for the race, we spent last night watching Spirit of the Marathon, a full-length feature film featuring 6 runners training for the 2005 Chicago Marathon. The runners range from first timers to elite runners with one common theme: INSPIRATION. I don't know what it is about endurance events, but I always get choked up and this movie was no different. I felt like I was going to burst into tears the entire movie. It DEFINITELY got us pumped up for the race!

Everyone keeps saying that the Chicago course is flat and fast, which is good to know since I'm aiming for my best time so far. My first marathon in Nashville was really hard, between the hilly course and the warm weather, and I had to walk a lot of the final 6.2 miles. My finishing time was 4 hours, 26 minutes. The New York City Marathon was a lot better than Nashville. For one, I knew what to expect. On top of that, the weather was perfect and the course is slightly less hilly. I didn't have to walk at all and finished tantalizingly close to 4:00 in 4:07:02. So here we are trying a third time to break 4:00 in Chicago. Taylor has lovingly agreed to run the race with me, even though he could surely do it quite a bit faster despite his more bare-bones training regimen (stinking skinny boys!). We're also going to join the Nike 4:00 pace group in hopes of hitting that elusive mark.

I was encouraged by my run today. I ran 8 miles and my goal was to do them at marathon pace (9 minutes and 11 seconds per mile). However, I felt really good and consistently was running under 9 minute miles. So, I think the biggest challenge on race day is going to be keeping a relaxed pace for the first 10 or so miles to make sure we have something left in the tank come 20! Who would have thought that the challenge would be to make sure we go SLOW enough to beat our time :)

This week will be pretty busy as we prepare for the race, but I will try to update the blog at least once more. In case I don't get to, though, WISH US LUCK and check out the race course here: Course