Post marathon blues...

I was on top of the world for a day and a half after running my first marathon this Sunday, but now I am analyzing and eager to get out and run again. I think the post-marathon blues is setting in.

I did not meet my goal for my first marathon. Don't get me wrong. I think its great to join the 26.2 club and plan on putting my first car sticker on my car EVER because of it, but I wanted to prove I was faster. I ran 4:03:27. Not bad by my peers opinions, but I actually don't personally know any other marathoners. My forum friends are encouraging, but some of them are so fast. I thought I was one of them.

I am fit, I am 6'4" and 184 lbs. I can run fast. My fastest mile was 5:20. I have run a lot of miles, well at least I ran all but a few of the workouts in Hal Higdon's Novice I marathon training program. Why couldn't I get the predicted 3:30:00 marathon?

Well, to be honest I told myself that I would be happy with under 4 hours, and that is why I am not happy. I trained like a mad man and felt awesome going into the marathon. I found myself well ahead of the 3:40 marathon pace group with only 12 K left, but I hit the wall and it took an hour for me to cover the last 5 miles. I tried to gut out mile 21 and hit an 8:44 pace for it, but slammed down hard afterward.

Oh well, I am waiting for the tenderness to leave my right calf and plan on a 3 mile recovery run tomorrow. After that few low mileage weeks, while I look for a good training plan to get me at least a 3:50 marathon. I have changed my expectations because I feel that if I had merely run the more conservative pace at the beginning I would've had more to give at the end. I will focus on negative splits because I almost never can do them.

I have got another marathon October 10th and I expect to improve.