It's about time to look back at the training cycle leading to the upcoming maraton and try to evaluate in an "unbiased" way positive and negative aspects. Positive things: this is my first fall marathon ever (I am keeping my fingers crossed), I am unjured and since april all my training was uninterrupted. It is the first fall marathon because it was always hard to train throughout the summer months, last year I tried and I signed up for Florence, but three days before the race I fell sick with high fever, but my training was not as consistent as this year. This year I also maintained high mileage and good speed in july and august. I have doubts and questions in my brain right now (as a side effect of not running much), but I will have a second chance at the end of november at the Florence marathon, for this reason I am not too worried about this race. Negative things: I wish I had more slow/base miles in may and june, but I was afraid to crash and burn as I did during the last three years failing all the attempts to run a fall marathon, so I kept the mileage more manageable. I feel I lack some endurance (I wish I had 200 more miles on my board). Racing was really bad, I didn't race much because I felt always tired and the two races at the end of august and the half in september were really sub par due to the heat. I wish I had a couple of good (in terms of feeling at the end) races to better evaluate my training. Other than these two points I don't have many regrets. I am going to write down my three goals just to keep my mind focused: #1 to finish in 3:15:00 maintaining a constant pace of 4:37/km, #2 to finish in 3:19:59 this would open the door of the first corral at the Florence and Rome marathon, #3 to finish under 3:24:21 and beat my most recent PR done in Rome. The most important thing for me is still to finish, if uninjured would be even better. I get a very special mental reward even when I don't reach my goals, I am progressively slowing down, but I am still able to fight until the end, until the finish line. Being able to do this kind of activity is a blessing and I will try to enjoy it while I can.
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