T-Minus 16 and Fun With Numbers

Two weeks. In two weeks I'll be within a couple of days of heading to Frederick for my self-imposed date with destiny. Or not. Much like Philadelphia I am at a point where I have no expectations of myself. I am comfortable with that. After all, I expected nothing near what I did in Philadelphia and that worked out alright for me.

As this training period wore on I questioned at times whether or not it was the best idea to come back and attempt another marathon, let alone a Boston-qualifier so quickly. Not six weeks ago I wondered if I'd even back out of this marathon for lack of proper preparation.

But time, like always has healed those thoughts and I am a confident and quick runner at themoment. A "slow" training day today in the hottest weather I have run in in 2008 (71 degrees but very little humidity) yielded a BQ time without really trying. Again I must reiterate I am confident.

While running today I wondered if what I felt was true. I recall thinking that I feel as though my overall mileage for this marathon training period is down, but my average miles per run is higher than usual. So all I had to do was go back through my logs and compute simple math to find out. What I found out is that I wasn't exactly right, but the numbers do bear out something else and like everything else right now it has provided me with even more confidence. Below in order of running are my marathons with the total "training miles" logged followed by an average miles per run (in parentheses):

• Cleveland: 372 total (7.15/run) - finish time 4:02:02
• Baltimore: 263.9 total (7.13/run) - finish time 3:39:37
• Cincinnati: 426.85 total (6.99/run) - finish time 3:26:08
• Philadelphia: 242.75 total (6.22/run) - finish time 3:16:03

Interestingly enough my highest mileage total yielded my second fastest time. My highest average per run total yielded my slowest time. My PR time run in Philly was done on the lowest average per run and lowest total mileage. What isn't taken into account here is weather, course conditions or time of year. I'm simply improving each time out. And each training period has provided me with different challenges. In comparison (with six training runs left until Frederick) I am at a total of 264.6 training miles with an average run of 6.3 miles. Comparitively speaking it's closer to Philadelphia than any of them, but slightly higher. Irregardless of the numbers I feel as fast as I have ever been and I hope that holds true in sixteen days.