I can't believe it but there are only 3 1/2 weeks until the Philly marathon. Where did all that training time go? Building up to Chicago last year was just week after week of decent mileage and good workouts. It got very monotonous and tiring but it also made me feel like I was ready to tackle the marathon and drive it right into the ground. I felt faster, fitter, and ready.

No so much this fall. My training has been more of a start/stop affair with to many stops. I got started a few weeks late, I lost over a week getting married, I lost two weekends due to other issues and here I am with just over 3 weeks to go and feeling unprepared. I haven't had those surprisingly easy and fast workout that often occur in training. My tempo runs have gone poorly, and many of my easy runs haven't felt great either. All of this and I really haven't been logging that many miles. 50-60 /week, with a couple weeks much less than that, instead of my normal 60-70

Where does this all leave me? I don't know. I can for sure say that I am not to confident. Despite the lower mileage over the past couple weeks, my legs haven't felt good. I have been having intestinal issues on many runs when in the past they were a rare occurrence. My motivation has also been lacking. I find myself kind of dreading the mid-week 14 mile workout. I had thoughts of just not doing the marathon.

Today things feel better. My legs feel fast and ready to go. I am looking forward to 15 miler tonight and I think it is going to go well. Hopefully I can carry this feeling into the final couple weeks of training and ride it right through my taper into the marathon.

Regardless of the way the next couple weeks go I am going to line up on Nov 18th shooting for a sub 3:00 marathon. The original goal of 2:55 and 6:40 pace seems like a real stretch right now. I think I will be better off going a little more conservatively in the first half, maybe 1:29, and than hopefully pick it up slightly and negative split.

The runs:

Sun - A very easy 4.5 miles in 38 minutes
Mon- 6+ miles through Roxborough in 48:00. This run felt decent.
Tues - Off
Tonight - 15 miles through chestnut hill.