Excited about Grandfather Mtn Marathon

It's a tough hilly race - but also one of the few summer marathons in the south, and very scenic and beautiful, starting on the ASU campus and ending amongst the Highland Games, the annual Scottish heritage festival where grown men in skirts throw telephone poles and huge stone hammers and drink epic quantities of whiskey. Should be amusing to see then!

I've managed a series of 10 mile runs lately and I think having the goal of a big race has helped focus me. I'm thinking I should always have one on deck - after Grandfather, something in August would be nice.

Time to go check out Marathon Guide!

Best source for race planning I've found.

Ten Miles at 738

Building a base - I want to be doing these at 715 - well 645 actually - and that's quite possible.

9.3 miles on Sunday

Couldn't quite make it to 10. Also took Monday off - what happened to ten every day? I was just too tired. But if you look at it on a week by week basis - I've increased my mileage exponentially so that is positive as far as conditioning.

I know what I must do now

Run ten miles every day as fast as I can.

How simple is that?

Registered for the Grandfather Mtn Marathon

It's on July 10th. It's nice to have a goal to shoot for. Starts at 3000 feet, ends at 4000 feet 26 miles later.

I train at sea level and am just getting my mojo back after taking off far too much time. This will be a challenge.

10 miles at 7:16 pace

Last mile fastest at 6:49 - that's more like it!

Going back to church

Getting back into the swing of things

Lately I've had a good string of solid 10k runs so I'm feeling much better about that. I contracted the norovirus in mid April so that really set me back a good month - the gastroenteritis made it difficult to keep food down so I had very little energy for physical activity.

Feeling much better and stronger now though - and with the lovely weather, I have no excuse to not get in a 10k run every day. That is my current mission, and I choose to accept it. Happy trails.