Perth Marathon 2010

First to the important bit - SUB 3 CLOWN! Congratulations well deserved
As Sling mentioned, only one of the class to go.

I decided I would run at the start of the week. I had been thinking of what to set as new goals, and decided on more, rather than faster, merathons - for now. I don't know that focussing on Melbourne and potentially doing a minute or two under my PB (but potentially not) would be all that satisfying. The future goal of 10+ Perths is something I'm more interested in

So on the back of 50k/60k/50k/70k then one week taper, I wasn't expecting too much.

Luckily I quickly settled in with Gunner and (?) Brewer who were looking at 3:15 pace. This seemed easy and we passed halfway at 96:40. I kept the same pace but they slowed a bit, so I tagged on with a guy running his first marathon. We continued together until 35k, speeding up from 4:34s to 4:30s. He then dropped back and I pushed the pace to about 4:25s 35-41k.

It was a great feeling to be finishing fast, as I overtook about a dozen in the last 10k and was only passed by the top 3 relay teams. I sped to 4:15 for the 42nd km then at 3:45 pace for the last 200m.

Time 3:11:20

Halves 1:36:40/1:34:40

5ks 22:49, 22:47, 22:54, 22:54, 22:48, 22:51, 22:29, 22:12

7ks 31:55, 31:56, 32:09, 31:50, 31:42, 30:51

After feeling a little ill immediately at the end fter my sprint, I quickly recovered and felt fine the rest of the day.

I was thinking about Sling's comment re average weekly pace and marathon time.
For me, a top marathon effort equates to about 15sec per km faster than my average weekly pace in the leadup (e.g C2s weekly pace 4:25, Mara 4:10.)

Today I ran only about 4sec/k faster than my leadup paces (4:35-4:31) - hence the easier effort. So I probably had 5min up my sleeve if I wanted to push myself to the limit, and that makes me happy given my very poor leadup.

My plan now is hopefully to get another 5 weeks trainingx70k in after a week off, and run City to Surf marathon with similar perceived effort and hopefully a similar time or a little faster. That will be road Marathon #10 and #13 including my six Inch trail maathons

Oh and kudos to Biscuitman and Sugar - first place relay !