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a lap around Dublin
I was talking with That One Friend[1] about maybe doing the Dublin City Marathon as far back as February this year. I'd found a three days a week, 16-week training plan that pretty much gave me the luxury of not deciding to start training properly until about July, and in the mean time I figured I'd go ahead and do the Adidas Race Series (5 mile, 10 mile and half-marathon races, a month apart) as I'd done last year.
The best laid plans, and all that. In the end, my training schedule got knocked out of whack by a variety of things: the Race Series itself didn't coincide with the distances I was supposed to be running on those weekends plus being races, they knocked me flat for a few days afterwards. I decided early on to abandon the speed training and focus on the pace/stamina stuff, which meant two days a week of running, but for some reason I had a tough time even keeping to that. Aside from that, there was a two-week trip to Cyprus (after my first day or so, I went out for a run every day) and a two-week trip to Seattle (despite staying in the WAC, I only got in two runs, and both were 5k or less on the WAC's ridiculously small running track). It was beginning to look like I'd have to skip the marathon. Nagging away at the back of my head, however, was a combination of wanting to do this crazy thing in my 35th year, and also wanting to impress the aforementioned Friend.
Closing date for entries: October 6th. I looked at my running schedule, figured I'd do the 20 miles on the 5th, and make my decision based on that. 80 minutes and ten miles later, I stopped for a drink, and then did the second ten miles in 90 minutes. 2:50 total, leaving me an hour and ten to do a little over six miles; I figured not only could I do the marathon, but I could do it in under four hours! And so I hit up the web and a few minutes later had my electronic receipt telling me I was runner number 11195.
I ran the rest of the scheduled training, less the speed runs: 4 miles, 15 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles. There was something bizarre about running 15 miles for a training run, given that previously I'd raced a mere 13.1 and found it pretty physically destructive. During this time I also read Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running wherein he describes being overconfident going into a marathon, feeling fine at 20 miles or so, and then pretty much dying in the last few miles. It's a great book, but don't read it when you're training poorly.
I still wanted to keep the whole thing quiet. I'd told The Friend the day after I booked my entry; later in October it seemed like I might have to go back to Seattle at short notice and so I told my boss why it was that I couldn't do this; but for the most part, people didn't ask me straight out (and I've certainly said enough in the past to counter the idea) and so it wasn't too hard to keep it a secret. Of course, that couldn't last: a friend of mine, Brendan, was also running, and we met on Friday last. Me, Brendan, Brendan's better half Rach, and Cliffy. Rach hasn't seen me for - quite literally - years. And the first thing out of her mouth? "are you running on Monday?" I tried to hem and haw my way out of that one, but I couldn't flat-out lie about it, and so the Secret Circle expanded to five.
Race day! A pox upon Irish Rail and Dublin Bus for their bank holiday schedules! I had to drive to Sandyford to catch the Luas into town, as that was the only public transport running. As advised, I'd packed my gear the night before, so it was basically fall out of bed at 6:15am, don the running kit, have some breakfast, then head to the race. I arrived with plenty time in hand, walking down Baggot Street in biting cold wondering if I'd have to wear my hooded top to the start line (which essentially meant discarding it, as there's no way I could retrieve it after the race). As we turned onto Merrion Square South, however, the sun was shining all the way over the rooftops in the Mount Street direction, and it started feeling a little warmer, and I ditched the hoodie with the rest of my gear. Having juggled things around in the pockets of my waterbottle belt, I figured I'd give up on the GPS toy as well; I wanted to bring my phone in case I keeled over out on course and needed to contact some friends, and once I'd filled pockets with phone and energy bars there wasn't really room to safely hold the GPS as well. A shame, as I'd like to have tracked my progress a little more closely.
I met up with Bren, Rach and Cliffy before the start, and Rach took a picture of Cliffy standing next to myself and Bren, at which Cliffy quipped, "two and a half men - and I'm the two". For some reason I thought Bren was in the over-four-hour category, so we wound up starting from different points, but I think it was probably better for Bren that we weren't running together. Or maybe worse for me. All is revealed below.
Once the start area started filling up, the icy wind that had been blowing intermittently didn't matter so much. There was a real sense of cameraderie among complete strangers; people asking about each others' targets and that sort of thing, but idle chatter as well. One guy near me was wearing a chicken costume; I overheard one of his colleagues saying that he'd won the bet, so I can only assume there was a hapless egg wandering around elsewhere... 20 minutes to go. 19 minutes to go. Time was crawling by. Suddenly, a burst of applause: the wheelchair racers were off. The crowd shuffled forward, overclothing and plastic bags being discarded left and right over the heads of the runners. A pistol shot, and we're off!
I planned on sticking to my notional pace from the 20-mile run: 8-minute miles for the first ten miles, 9-minute miles for the second ten, then whatever I could manage to get me through the last six. Not having any means of distance-measuring, I was dependant on the mile markers to keep track of my pace. Obviously, then, I was somewhat annoyed when I realised I'd missed the first mile marker, so I was into my second mile with no idea how fast I was running. The second mile marker was a little more visible, and I was roughly on-pace, so I kept running at the same speed. The first water station was at the 3-mile mark, and I spotted the 5k shortly after that, just under 24 minutes. Great!
Into Phoenix Park. We ran up by the zoo. Two guys coming up on my right-hand side: "they must think we're some sort of migrating animal", "like Wildebeest". "It's not much of a migration,", I interjected, "we wind up in the same spot we started from". They laughed, one of them adding, "and the weather hasn't changed, either!" Like I said, a real sense of cameraderie.
The weather, actually, was nice enough at this point that I'd taken off my gloves. We ran up the main road in Phoenix Park, then off to the side and downhill towards Chapelizod. My feet were starting to blister at this point, much as I expected, and running downhill wasn't doing them much good, either, but there was nothing for it but to ignore it and keep going. We passed under a flyover for the N4, and someone started up a chant: "AGGIE AGGIE AGGIE" The response came back: "OY OY OY", "AGGIE!" "OY!" "AGGIE!" "OY!" "AGGIE AGGIE AGGIE" "OY OY OY" and we were out into the sunshine on the other side of the bridge, smiling and laughing despite the fact that we'd completed 9 miles by this point, and had been running for over an hour. The ten-mile marker came and went, and I glanced at my watch: 1:20. Excellent. I told myself I could drop off the pace a little, and I did, pretty much: by the time we got to 13.1, I was on 1:47 - again, pretty much bang on target.
I think the first time I dropped to a walk was probably somewhere on the 17th mile; I dropped to a walk to drink from my bottle, then picked back up into a run again. I was still just about on pace despite this, hitting the mile markers - when I could see them - more or less on schedule. There's a few hills on the southern part of the course, despite it allegedly being a flat course, and they tend in general to be short and steep, but there was a seriously long haul around Clonskeagh where it seemed like about a mile and a half of uphill - and that was around the 19th mile of the race. I hit 20 miles on the top end of 2:50, probably closer to 51, and told myself I'd try for 21 miles in three hours, since we were cresting the hill on Roebuck Road and heading down for Foster's Avenue at this point. I passed the marker at 3 hours according to my watch, and dropped to a walk to drink and catch my breath. Two minutes later, I started running again, and arrived on the Stillorgan Road heading for home. The UCD flyover seemed flat, which I guess it is - the road dips to go under it - and we crossed over the top and the 35k marker was on the other side. "I can do this", I told myself, "I can make it" - but my pace was seriously flagging at this point, and I think I probably ran at least one ten-minute mile around here. Down Nutely Lane, left onto Merrion. It's daunting, on one hand, because I know this road, and I know how far it is to the city centre from here, and on the other hand it's a blessing, because I know it's not that much further to the finish.
Up past the RDS. Some well-meaning but misguided person says it's only two miles to go several hundred meters before we've passed the 24 mile mark. I grimace a little and keep pounding; the crowd support has been fantastic most of the way - even the little kid somewhere in Crumlin who told us we were nearly there when we hadn't even gotten half way. People are handing out boiled sweets and jellies and chocolate bars and I don't know what else, and they're cheering us along as if we're Olympians. It really does put a spring in your step, even though my feet are burning up, my right knee is voicing some serious complaint, and my thighs...
Ah crap.
24 miles, 3:30, and my thighs have had it. We hit a slight rise to cross the Grand Canal, and I can't run. I drop to a walk. An old man offers me some wine gums, which I gratefully accept, and keep trudging forward. Up the bridge. Over the canal. Down the other side, and an enthusiastic spectator tries to encourage me to run, trotting backwards next to me and telling me I'm nearly there. I appreciate the sentiment, and smile wanly at him, and keep walking. A Dutchman pulls level with me - at least, I'm assuming he's Dutch due to the accent and the bright orange top he's wearing. He says to me, "we'll finish no matter what, eh?" and I nod and smile and say, "if I have to crawl". He's walking too, but I can't keep pace with him - as soon as I stopped running, my knee seems to have taken this as a signal to freeze up completely. I push on through Grand Canal street, occasionally checking my watch. I can see the time slipping away, and it's killing me not that I won't make the four hours, but that I'll just barely miss it. I look up and see the sign for 25 miles.
To hell with it. I'm running.
I grind my knee back into action, and suddenly I'm passing people, and moving through the crowds. I pass the Dutch guy; "come on, it's the last mile" but I don't think he had anything left. I've got maybe 14, maybe 15 minutes to get from here to the finish line. A mile and a bit in 15 minutes. I can do that. Hell, I can run twice as fast as that normally. Go! The crowds are phenomenal. We're running up Pearse Street and they've lined both sides of the road. People are trying to cross at College Green, but there's no break in the runners. We come around the front of Trinity College, and a guy coming up behind me asks what time we're on. I look down. 3:50. I'm going to do it! "Three fifty, bang on!" "Great!", he says, and tears off ahead of me, one arm raised in a victory salute. The crowd are loving it; they reach out to high-five him as he's running past. We're running along Nassau Street now, really running despite the pain, and there are people three and four deep on both sides of the road, shouting for all they're worth. I raise my own arm in salute. Nassau Street becomes Clare Street. We round the corner onto Merrion Square West, and there's the finish. The clock is at 3:54, and damned if I'm going to stagger across the line. It's 100m or less. It doesn't even feel like I'm digging deep at this point: between the clock, the crowd, and the closeness of the finish line it seems like the most natural thing in the world to sprint for the line. I pass a dozen runners on the way, and... I'm done. 3:55:15 on the clock, 3:54:55 personal time.
I was almost in tears when I got my finisher's medal. I thanked the girl who gave it to me profusely, then queued to have my photo taken, picked up my goodie bag, and retrieved my stuff. As I exited the "participants only" area, I pretty much ran straight into Cliffy who'd been waiting for me since I'd texted him just after crossing the line. Bren was sitting in a doorway over to the left, having probably passed me while I was walking the 24th mile; he'd reeled in a 3:46 personal time - I figure if I'd actually run with him, he wouldn't have gotten that, but at the same time I might've made a better time; it's not really important now, though. We sat there laughing and joking and hurting while Rach and Cliffy took some photos, and then headed for home. On the way, I stopped to thank a completely random Garda for supporting the marathon; he looked surprised, but accepted my thanks graciously.
And my injuries? I have blisters. In fact, my left foot has a blister that's too big for any of the plasters I have to cope with. My right foot is more chafed than blistered. For bonus points, both my feet bled through my sneakers. Hardcore! My right knee... well, I won't be running for at least a week. My right shoulder is also a bit sore. But the thing that's been hampering me most is the fact that I've got bruises on two of my toes, and I keep catching them on things or bumping them off things. Owie!
Thanks to That One Friend for making me believe I could do this, and for encouraging me along the way; thanks also to the organisers and volunteers who did an excellent job, but please, overhead mile markers would be so much of a better idea if I ever do this again; and apologies to anyone who asked me about marathons and bank holiday weekends and either got no answer (sorry, Ilana!) or some silly answer that distracted from the question.
[1] That One Friend is not among those of us who live our lives on the net, hence the anonymity.
The best laid plans, and all that. In the end, my training schedule got knocked out of whack by a variety of things: the Race Series itself didn't coincide with the distances I was supposed to be running on those weekends plus being races, they knocked me flat for a few days afterwards. I decided early on to abandon the speed training and focus on the pace/stamina stuff, which meant two days a week of running, but for some reason I had a tough time even keeping to that. Aside from that, there was a two-week trip to Cyprus (after my first day or so, I went out for a run every day) and a two-week trip to Seattle (despite staying in the WAC, I only got in two runs, and both were 5k or less on the WAC's ridiculously small running track). It was beginning to look like I'd have to skip the marathon. Nagging away at the back of my head, however, was a combination of wanting to do this crazy thing in my 35th year, and also wanting to impress the aforementioned Friend.
Closing date for entries: October 6th. I looked at my running schedule, figured I'd do the 20 miles on the 5th, and make my decision based on that. 80 minutes and ten miles later, I stopped for a drink, and then did the second ten miles in 90 minutes. 2:50 total, leaving me an hour and ten to do a little over six miles; I figured not only could I do the marathon, but I could do it in under four hours! And so I hit up the web and a few minutes later had my electronic receipt telling me I was runner number 11195.
I ran the rest of the scheduled training, less the speed runs: 4 miles, 15 miles, 8 miles, 10 miles. There was something bizarre about running 15 miles for a training run, given that previously I'd raced a mere 13.1 and found it pretty physically destructive. During this time I also read Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running wherein he describes being overconfident going into a marathon, feeling fine at 20 miles or so, and then pretty much dying in the last few miles. It's a great book, but don't read it when you're training poorly.
I still wanted to keep the whole thing quiet. I'd told The Friend the day after I booked my entry; later in October it seemed like I might have to go back to Seattle at short notice and so I told my boss why it was that I couldn't do this; but for the most part, people didn't ask me straight out (and I've certainly said enough in the past to counter the idea) and so it wasn't too hard to keep it a secret. Of course, that couldn't last: a friend of mine, Brendan, was also running, and we met on Friday last. Me, Brendan, Brendan's better half Rach, and Cliffy. Rach hasn't seen me for - quite literally - years. And the first thing out of her mouth? "are you running on Monday?" I tried to hem and haw my way out of that one, but I couldn't flat-out lie about it, and so the Secret Circle expanded to five.
Race day! A pox upon Irish Rail and Dublin Bus for their bank holiday schedules! I had to drive to Sandyford to catch the Luas into town, as that was the only public transport running. As advised, I'd packed my gear the night before, so it was basically fall out of bed at 6:15am, don the running kit, have some breakfast, then head to the race. I arrived with plenty time in hand, walking down Baggot Street in biting cold wondering if I'd have to wear my hooded top to the start line (which essentially meant discarding it, as there's no way I could retrieve it after the race). As we turned onto Merrion Square South, however, the sun was shining all the way over the rooftops in the Mount Street direction, and it started feeling a little warmer, and I ditched the hoodie with the rest of my gear. Having juggled things around in the pockets of my waterbottle belt, I figured I'd give up on the GPS toy as well; I wanted to bring my phone in case I keeled over out on course and needed to contact some friends, and once I'd filled pockets with phone and energy bars there wasn't really room to safely hold the GPS as well. A shame, as I'd like to have tracked my progress a little more closely.
I met up with Bren, Rach and Cliffy before the start, and Rach took a picture of Cliffy standing next to myself and Bren, at which Cliffy quipped, "two and a half men - and I'm the two". For some reason I thought Bren was in the over-four-hour category, so we wound up starting from different points, but I think it was probably better for Bren that we weren't running together. Or maybe worse for me. All is revealed below.
Once the start area started filling up, the icy wind that had been blowing intermittently didn't matter so much. There was a real sense of cameraderie among complete strangers; people asking about each others' targets and that sort of thing, but idle chatter as well. One guy near me was wearing a chicken costume; I overheard one of his colleagues saying that he'd won the bet, so I can only assume there was a hapless egg wandering around elsewhere... 20 minutes to go. 19 minutes to go. Time was crawling by. Suddenly, a burst of applause: the wheelchair racers were off. The crowd shuffled forward, overclothing and plastic bags being discarded left and right over the heads of the runners. A pistol shot, and we're off!
I planned on sticking to my notional pace from the 20-mile run: 8-minute miles for the first ten miles, 9-minute miles for the second ten, then whatever I could manage to get me through the last six. Not having any means of distance-measuring, I was dependant on the mile markers to keep track of my pace. Obviously, then, I was somewhat annoyed when I realised I'd missed the first mile marker, so I was into my second mile with no idea how fast I was running. The second mile marker was a little more visible, and I was roughly on-pace, so I kept running at the same speed. The first water station was at the 3-mile mark, and I spotted the 5k shortly after that, just under 24 minutes. Great!
Into Phoenix Park. We ran up by the zoo. Two guys coming up on my right-hand side: "they must think we're some sort of migrating animal", "like Wildebeest". "It's not much of a migration,", I interjected, "we wind up in the same spot we started from". They laughed, one of them adding, "and the weather hasn't changed, either!" Like I said, a real sense of cameraderie.
The weather, actually, was nice enough at this point that I'd taken off my gloves. We ran up the main road in Phoenix Park, then off to the side and downhill towards Chapelizod. My feet were starting to blister at this point, much as I expected, and running downhill wasn't doing them much good, either, but there was nothing for it but to ignore it and keep going. We passed under a flyover for the N4, and someone started up a chant: "AGGIE AGGIE AGGIE" The response came back: "OY OY OY", "AGGIE!" "OY!" "AGGIE!" "OY!" "AGGIE AGGIE AGGIE" "OY OY OY" and we were out into the sunshine on the other side of the bridge, smiling and laughing despite the fact that we'd completed 9 miles by this point, and had been running for over an hour. The ten-mile marker came and went, and I glanced at my watch: 1:20. Excellent. I told myself I could drop off the pace a little, and I did, pretty much: by the time we got to 13.1, I was on 1:47 - again, pretty much bang on target.
I think the first time I dropped to a walk was probably somewhere on the 17th mile; I dropped to a walk to drink from my bottle, then picked back up into a run again. I was still just about on pace despite this, hitting the mile markers - when I could see them - more or less on schedule. There's a few hills on the southern part of the course, despite it allegedly being a flat course, and they tend in general to be short and steep, but there was a seriously long haul around Clonskeagh where it seemed like about a mile and a half of uphill - and that was around the 19th mile of the race. I hit 20 miles on the top end of 2:50, probably closer to 51, and told myself I'd try for 21 miles in three hours, since we were cresting the hill on Roebuck Road and heading down for Foster's Avenue at this point. I passed the marker at 3 hours according to my watch, and dropped to a walk to drink and catch my breath. Two minutes later, I started running again, and arrived on the Stillorgan Road heading for home. The UCD flyover seemed flat, which I guess it is - the road dips to go under it - and we crossed over the top and the 35k marker was on the other side. "I can do this", I told myself, "I can make it" - but my pace was seriously flagging at this point, and I think I probably ran at least one ten-minute mile around here. Down Nutely Lane, left onto Merrion. It's daunting, on one hand, because I know this road, and I know how far it is to the city centre from here, and on the other hand it's a blessing, because I know it's not that much further to the finish.
Up past the RDS. Some well-meaning but misguided person says it's only two miles to go several hundred meters before we've passed the 24 mile mark. I grimace a little and keep pounding; the crowd support has been fantastic most of the way - even the little kid somewhere in Crumlin who told us we were nearly there when we hadn't even gotten half way. People are handing out boiled sweets and jellies and chocolate bars and I don't know what else, and they're cheering us along as if we're Olympians. It really does put a spring in your step, even though my feet are burning up, my right knee is voicing some serious complaint, and my thighs...
Ah crap.
24 miles, 3:30, and my thighs have had it. We hit a slight rise to cross the Grand Canal, and I can't run. I drop to a walk. An old man offers me some wine gums, which I gratefully accept, and keep trudging forward. Up the bridge. Over the canal. Down the other side, and an enthusiastic spectator tries to encourage me to run, trotting backwards next to me and telling me I'm nearly there. I appreciate the sentiment, and smile wanly at him, and keep walking. A Dutchman pulls level with me - at least, I'm assuming he's Dutch due to the accent and the bright orange top he's wearing. He says to me, "we'll finish no matter what, eh?" and I nod and smile and say, "if I have to crawl". He's walking too, but I can't keep pace with him - as soon as I stopped running, my knee seems to have taken this as a signal to freeze up completely. I push on through Grand Canal street, occasionally checking my watch. I can see the time slipping away, and it's killing me not that I won't make the four hours, but that I'll just barely miss it. I look up and see the sign for 25 miles.
To hell with it. I'm running.
I grind my knee back into action, and suddenly I'm passing people, and moving through the crowds. I pass the Dutch guy; "come on, it's the last mile" but I don't think he had anything left. I've got maybe 14, maybe 15 minutes to get from here to the finish line. A mile and a bit in 15 minutes. I can do that. Hell, I can run twice as fast as that normally. Go! The crowds are phenomenal. We're running up Pearse Street and they've lined both sides of the road. People are trying to cross at College Green, but there's no break in the runners. We come around the front of Trinity College, and a guy coming up behind me asks what time we're on. I look down. 3:50. I'm going to do it! "Three fifty, bang on!" "Great!", he says, and tears off ahead of me, one arm raised in a victory salute. The crowd are loving it; they reach out to high-five him as he's running past. We're running along Nassau Street now, really running despite the pain, and there are people three and four deep on both sides of the road, shouting for all they're worth. I raise my own arm in salute. Nassau Street becomes Clare Street. We round the corner onto Merrion Square West, and there's the finish. The clock is at 3:54, and damned if I'm going to stagger across the line. It's 100m or less. It doesn't even feel like I'm digging deep at this point: between the clock, the crowd, and the closeness of the finish line it seems like the most natural thing in the world to sprint for the line. I pass a dozen runners on the way, and... I'm done. 3:55:15 on the clock, 3:54:55 personal time.
I was almost in tears when I got my finisher's medal. I thanked the girl who gave it to me profusely, then queued to have my photo taken, picked up my goodie bag, and retrieved my stuff. As I exited the "participants only" area, I pretty much ran straight into Cliffy who'd been waiting for me since I'd texted him just after crossing the line. Bren was sitting in a doorway over to the left, having probably passed me while I was walking the 24th mile; he'd reeled in a 3:46 personal time - I figure if I'd actually run with him, he wouldn't have gotten that, but at the same time I might've made a better time; it's not really important now, though. We sat there laughing and joking and hurting while Rach and Cliffy took some photos, and then headed for home. On the way, I stopped to thank a completely random Garda for supporting the marathon; he looked surprised, but accepted my thanks graciously.
And my injuries? I have blisters. In fact, my left foot has a blister that's too big for any of the plasters I have to cope with. My right foot is more chafed than blistered. For bonus points, both my feet bled through my sneakers. Hardcore! My right knee... well, I won't be running for at least a week. My right shoulder is also a bit sore. But the thing that's been hampering me most is the fact that I've got bruises on two of my toes, and I keep catching them on things or bumping them off things. Owie!
Thanks to That One Friend for making me believe I could do this, and for encouraging me along the way; thanks also to the organisers and volunteers who did an excellent job, but please, overhead mile markers would be so much of a better idea if I ever do this again; and apologies to anyone who asked me about marathons and bank holiday weekends and either got no answer (sorry, Ilana!) or some silly answer that distracted from the question.
[1] That One Friend is not among those of us who live our lives on the net, hence the anonymity.
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!
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That said, you chose what is generally acknowledged to be the worst possible race strategy - going out fast and planning to run positive splits. I also think you ran your long runs far too fast, particularly for a focus on endurance. With your limited training I don't think you could have run the race much faster, but if you had started at 8:45 to 9 minute miles I think the last 6 would have been more pleasant, anyway. (On the other hand, given your speed at short distances, I think if you seriously train for endurance you could be quite frighteningly good at the marathon.)
Now, rest those weary bones and heal up fast.
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Good to know I ran it completely assways and still got away with it! I've been doing that on the shorter races, too, and it's a habit I can't quite seem to get out of - running "slowly" when I have the pace to go faster is very difficult for me. It took quite a bit of effort to force myself to run 8-minute miles when I know I can do 7-minute miles (and faster) over shorter distances; running 8:45 to 9 at the start of a race would just feel completely wrong. I guess that would come under the heading of "serious endurance training"...
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Part of it is pacing during the race and part of it is training. There is this whole school of heart rate training that advocates extremely slow long runs; pretty much every training program suggests they should be significantly slower than MP, even FIRST which I think specifies the fastest long runs at MP+10%. For example, I ran my marathon pretty much the same average pace as you (but with more even splits), but my long run paces were mostly in the 9:40 to 10:20 range. The point of this is to build your cardiovascular conditioning and train your body to utilize fat as well as glycogen. If you always run fast in training, you basically train your body to run that speed for that distance but no more.
I wouldn't worry about training schedule discipline, though. I was totally cavalier with my schedule - it specified 6 days a week (well, 5 plus one sort of optional) and I usually ran only 3 or 4, with great swaths of time where I went off hiking instead. I mean, if you or I want to run a really really fast marathon (for you, say, 3:20; for me something like 3:40) we would have to train our butts off. And I'm not sure either of us is up for that! But I bet with proper training (although still low mileage) you could hit 3:40 easy.
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