Hills for breakfast, hold the gnats

Sounds like a good plan. Given your recent training, if you maintain a 9:20 pace up to the last 6 miles or so, you should have plenty of energy to either keep that pace to the end or even speed up the last couple of miles if needed. You've trained really smart it looks like and have every reason to be confident going into the taper phase and then the marathon itself. Keep it up!

Thanks for the welcome! I'm embarking on running my first marathon and already I am thinking about a long term goal of qualifying for Boston. Maybe in 15 years or so :). Good luck to you!

You plan looks good. Whatever you do, save some for the 2nd half...the hill to the bridge at mi 17 took quite a lot of effort and shortly thereafter I hit the wall.....hard. Your plan is sound. Walking the water stations makes sense (I did that for a couple at Portland) and your pacing estimates seem conservative, so you should be in good shape. Just take the hill up to the bridge at whatever pace doesn't completely wear you out and you'll regain the time back on the last few miles when you finish strong!

The concern I have is that you do not have any reliable tell tale indicators of your fitness. You've run a few tempos, but it is hard to tell much from that. If you ran a race even as short as a 5 K on a certified course it would be helpful. A longer race would be even more helpful. Mile by mile splits during the race with a description of how you felt would provide more clues.

If you are unable to race prior to the marathon, then the best plan would be to forget the time goal and just run by feel. At the start of any race you always have a potential within you to run a certain time. If you run right, you will run that time. If you don't you will run slower. You cannot run faster than that time by setting a goal no matter how motivated you are about it. You must be willing to adjust your expectations as the race develops and not worry if that goal is slipping away. At the same time, you must be prepared for the scenario when your goal happens to be too low, your body can do more. If so, your body will communicate. Listen to your body throughout the race and keep fine-tuning your race plan. Monitor your mile splits, but do so more for observation and setting micro goals. Do not panic and drastically adjust the pace if a mile split happens to be too fast or too slow. E.g you ran mile 13 in 9:05. Your body is telling you it is a tad too fast. Set a goal to run mile 14 in 9:10. Suppose it is 9:12 and it feels perfect even though you missed your goal of 9:10. Then set a goal to maintain that average for the next 3 miles, then re-evaluate. Be prepared to have to set "disappointing" goals - disasters are much more common in marathons than miracles, and most of the time disasters happen from being overambitious and not being willing to take a time that is a few minutes slower than your original goal. Then you end up taking a time that is 15-20 minutes slower instead of only 5.

One thing you can do, though, is practice drinking on a run so you do not have to walk through water stations. No need to waste the time and lose the momentum.

Thanks very much for the comments Sasha. It's very helpful. Cheers.