Marathons
March 1st, 2010Between miles 18 and 19, I overhear two people standing off to the side of the road talking about marathons. One of them mentions that he hiked 26 miles in the mountains once but it took awhile to do.
I ended up finishing Tampa’s Gasparilla marathon in 4 hours 29 minutes 2 seconds (middle of the pack finishing time), and my fastest time to do one so far. The first 23 miles entailed running for 7 minutes and walking for 1 minute. That strategy works well for me as attempting to run them straight through rapidly decays into forced walking shortly after 16 miles, leading to finish times of over 5 hours. After routinely banging my head against the wall for my first three marathons, I discovered that run/walking greatly helps. Run/walking them shortens the finish time to under 5 hours.
Of course, weather plays an important role. Cool and dry enables you; warm and humid slowly wears you down. Yesterday’s marathon fell into the cool and dry category, making it seem easier.