Yesterday I completed the 2008 Chicago marathon.
I found it amazing that 45,000 people signed up for this event. It was certainly an unbelievable site and incredible experience running along such a huge crowd of people.
The run started a little slow as I made my way through the crowds to settle on my pace. I felt strong and pain-free for the first few miles. Then the bottom of my feet started to bother me for what would be the entire course. This was most likely due to the fact that I decided to ignore the rule of breaking in your shoes before wearing them in a race. I wore the shoes I bought the day before at the expo. Although I can also attribute this to my lack of training. This was also the reason my pace slowed down and my legs started to give up on me the last couple of miles.
The truth is for the whole summer I concentrated on my triathlons in August. The Steelhead Ironman 70.3 and Chicago triathlons were to be my A races. After these I lost some motivation and ended up taking a couple of weeks off in September. I tried getting back to training in late September by completing my longest run of 18 miles and returning to the marathon program. I spent the last couple of weeks before the marathon, however, not feeling too well and failed to complete the program. This all translated into me missing my target of four hours. Instead I completed the marathon in 4:28.
Going forward I will need to train more running long distances. I also need to do a better job of staying motivated, especially for the next few days after completing a race. This means that today is a training day.
getting better...
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