28 Days to the Marathon

I have 28 days left until my next marathon. Four weeks. I've had many people ask me how my training has gone. It's been OK. Not great, but certainly not bad. I've gotten in reasonable mileage and not missed the long tuns (one more to go!). I have not done any benchmark races and I'm behind on tempo runs, but that's OK. I'd give myself a B- as a training grade. But I still have 4 weeks to improve that overall score. The final exam is on July 31 in the state of Washington and I'm shooting for an A...maybe an A+.

Over the next 4 weeks, I'd like to do several marathon pace runs. What's marathon pace? Well, I'm trying for a Boston Marathon time--for me (50-54 year old male) that means a 3:30 finish (8:00/minute per mile for 26.2 miles). To actually gain entry into Boston, I'll need to be about 3 minutes faster. So, I'm shooting for a 3:26:41 finish time. That is a 7:53/mile pace. Yes, 7 minutes and 53 seconds per mile. Easy to set the treadmill to 7.6 miles per hour (7:53 pace). That's my marathon pace for the next 28 days!

If this doesn't work, then I cut my balls off and go for the women's qualifying time of 4:00 hours. Does Jenner get that standard? What constitutes a male or female? And are women 30 minutes slower than men? Have you seen the male and female world records? 2:02:57 and 2:15:25. An extra 30 minutes? Really? Women are better than the current BQ standard. Give them some credit.