Nineteen Houstons!

I wasn't real hopeful for a good time this year with all the "catch as catch can" training I'd done over the last two months. Those of you who know me know I skipped lots of workouts for illness and work. I went into the expo and pulled pacer tags for 5 hours, 5:15 and 5:30, figuring that I would do my typical "fly and die" and gut out a finish around 5:30. My plan was to run 10:45s until I couldn't, then run as much as I could on the way in, taking off my pace tags as my estimated finish time matched the later times.

But something happened on race day and I'm not sure what. Maybe it was the good weather, maybe it was the race atmosphere, but I just ran well within myself and started popping off 10 minute miles. Over and over and over. Before I knew it, I had covered 16 miles at that pace. Then I ran two 10:45s. Then I switched over to a four/one run/walk ratio. I cruised across in 4:54:15, ecstatic.

Did I learn anything? My body seems to react to something different every year now. This year, I think it reacted to not having enough mileage trained at marathon goal pace. I think I need to:

• lose weight
• put in more speed work (to not only get faster, but to also have more chance to run an even pace for the whole distance. The farthest I've made it without walking is probably 22 miles - a nut I would love to crack. I think at this slow end, I'm really "in between" my running gears.)
  
• put in more base mileage
  

So I think maybe the FIRST running program (see earlier posts) might really work for me. If I can keep those 10 minute miles through 26 miles instead of just 16, I can knock half an hour off my time.
I've also already signed up for number 20.