Grandma's Marathon Race Report

I survived Grandma's Marathon in Duluth Minisota and ran actually faster than I planned.  I don't feel bad.  I'm ready to begin my cycle for Chicago. The guy below is Dick Wilde. I met him at the party after the race. He won the first Grandma's ever with a time of 2:14.44. He's run 76 marathons under 2:20!

I have to say the party was the highlight along with all the incredibly friendly people of Duluth, MN. In truth I'm ecstatic about how well I did. I didn't think I was in much better than 3:20 shape but I just sort of went with how my body felt with the thinking that I wanted to hit the half feeling good enough to pick it up a bit. It was a bit warmer than the weather forecast and a bit windy but overall a pretty good day for racing a summer marathon. I appreciate all the help from you guys. I'm back in a condition I can build some speed with.

Here were my Garmin Splits so you can look at HR and pace (looks like a HR of 160-165 is where my body runs best for this distance?).....I set the watch to autolap every 4 miles. In truth I didn't really look too much at my watch after the first 8 miles. I was mainly focusing on being consistent. I wanted to get arrive at the half in condition to get tougher for the second half. Miles 20-24 were the most challenging mentally for me (see lap 6 below). Perhaps adding a bit more mileage to my workouts will give me more mustard for this part of the race. Unintentionally I started to slow and my hr started to drop during this period of the race. I tried to pick it back up and dig deeper to keep it together for the last 2+.

Now I hope to extend my barefoot mileage to be able to run fast barefoot at Chicago. I have my work cut out for me.