Old Standby, shorty version - 4 miles, averaged 8:34 Last year I didn't (couldn't) run until Thursday after the marathon. In fact I was sore and tight during and after the race. This year I had some soreness for sure, but not much worse than some of the harder efforts I've had in the half marathon. Easy, low mileage for a while. I'm approaching one year of of no sidelining injuries and I''ll have run twice as many miles. I'd like to keep that going. I'm still not sure what happened in the marathon with the side stitches. Could be the pace was too fast, but they hit at mile 22 and my goal wasn't unrealistic based on my training and half marathon time. I don't think it was dehydration (too cold, too little sweat, and at least as much water as last year, and better hydration in the days before the race). I did suck down a good many gels. I'll be making my own in the future I'm pretty sure. Plans for next build up: similar, but more consistent mileage (lots of spikes into the 80s from the high 60s with no weeks in the 70s). Long runs were good, but probably too short. Next build up, I think 22ish miles, but primarily by time (2:45ish) as I can see a potential correlation between my duration of long runs and the time I started to fade in the marathon. Try to get the pace of the long runs close to 15-20 seconds from goal pace by the end of the run (maybe not in the early long runs but on a day when everything is clicking, later in the buildup). The difference between the fastest long run and actual marathon pace has been about 14 or 15 seconds for my first two marathons. This is different for the speediest out there, of course (but maybe not).
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