Marathon Schmarathon!

At one of my marathons that I actually trained for.......

I have had the best training season EVER! Why is that? Well, it must be because I never felt like I had to train, I just did it because I wanted to. Let me back up. My last tri was July 4th so since then, my workouts have been completely random. There is a marathon on October 4th that I am doing and two weeks ago, my husband asked me, "Are you really running the marathon?" My response was, "Yes." He replied, "Well then, shouldn't you be running?" Probably. Oh well.

I have seven marathons under my belt. Each one was its own unique experience. So, to continue that tradition, I wanted to conduct a little experiment. Could I run a decent marathon without any long runs and added strength training?

My goal was to keep my so called "long runs" in the single digits. So I have run a handful of 9 milers here and there, but certainly nothing consistent. I have had weeks where I have run 12 miles and some as high as 24 miles. Not nearly as much mileage as I am used to. However, I am crossfitting 5-6 times per week, swimming twice and running on Mondays and then sometimes in my crossfit workouts. That's it. Nothing on the weekends. No long runs. My husband can't believe it.

It will be very interesting since right now I am running faster than I ever have. My last mile split was 5:27. My intervals at the track are faster than ever. People that I run with at track are certain I will PR. I always laugh inside when someone says this. I know this will be my most painful marathon (well, probably comparable to my first Boston which was a death march). My first goal is to just finish and secondly, I would love to finish in under 4 hours.

Do I have a plan? At first I thought I would walk the first minute of each mile. I then thought it would drive me crazy to hear the spectators yelling at me to "keep going girl, you can run!" or at mile 3 say, "It's too early to walk!" Then I thought it would be great to run backwards for the first minute of each mile since that always feels so good. Then I thought the other runners around me might not appreciate that so much.

So, any suggestions for survival during this marathon? Would LOVE to hear them!