Taper Time

With only a week to go before the race day, I'm well in to taper mode. Even without the relatively long early morning runs, I still find myself rushing to get ready to work. Funny how the body works that way.

I still haven't decided on a marathon goal as of yet. My recent tune-up race suggest that 3:20 is a reasonable goal. I've spent a lot of time reading previous blog posts and analyzing pace and HR data and based on comparisons to when I did Chicago (albeit in 2006), when I was aiming for 3:20 and finished in 3:17. I think I'm faster than that right now. However, when I look at the last time, I did 3:15 at Niagara Falls, 5 years ago and compare my training and HR data to that, I feel that I'm not quite as fit as I was back then. The one big "but" is that I was actually on pace at the half for a 3:13 marathon during that race, but backed off a bit in the second half due to a head wind. So without a headwind, 3:15 might be doable. Even if it is doable, the next question of course is do I go for the BQ cushion time? I really don't have an answer to that yet. Part of me says "Boston or Bust" while the other part of me says, I haven't raced a marathon in 5 years so maybe it's better to just get one under the belt and worry about BQ'ing next spring. I've always hated winter training and with the prediction of the upcoming winter being as nutso cold and snowy as it was this past winter, I'm not looking forward to it.

The weather in Niagara predicted for next Sunday is looking good temperature wise, but the wind is a concern. It's currently predicted to be from the northwest at about 20km/hr which is basically a headwind for the last half of the course.   I've also started looking at doing Hamilton instead a week later and scouting out possible hotel rooms.  Not sure I'll switch, but it's nice to have a back-up plan.