I've spent the past hour geeking over my running blog. What started as a reread of my Boston Marathon post from 2007 turned into me reading all of my marathon posts over the past few years. Chicago(2006), Boston(2007) and Philly again (2009). I added mileage, I looked at workouts and I tried to piece together differences that can explain performances hoping for a smoking gun. Of course no gun turns up and I'm left with a few hints. Maybe it is total mileage, maybe it was those mid-week long runs before Chicago that payed off on race day, the extra gu at mile 10, slower tempo runs. The list goes.

I am sure if I e-mailed Jack Daniels and Pete Pfitzinger my logs over the past few years they could find a myriad of missed opportunities, over/under-training, and poor choices but that obviously isn't going to happen. The best I can do is look at when things worked, Chicago and to a lesser extent Boston. In Chicago I ran a negative split and a great race, in Boston I faded a little in the end but overall held things together for a PR on a tough course in bad weather. The thing both of those marathons have in common is more mileage. A total 100+ more miles in the 3 months prior to the marathon than I had for D.C.

I do this not to torture myself but to try and learn from experience. I don't think I am going to run another marathon in 2009 but I am sure as hell not going to let sub 3:00 go just yet. And whenever training begins anew the status quo is not going to work. It didn't work in Philly last year and it obviously didn't work last week. So I'll take my time, try and at least put this monkey on my back down for a little while and in the future, plan and stick to a training regimen that hopefully will have some wise improvements.