Today marked 8 weeks until the Walt Disney World Marathon. And thanks to a not-so-great run yesterday morning, I am starting to doubt my decision to pursue the full marathon distance.
My pace group sort of fractured this week - only 3 of us showed up to do the full training distance. One guy decided to bump up to one of the faster groups, and one of the guys bumped down to the slowest group. I knew that there was no way I was going to stick with the faster group, and the slower group was doing 1:1 intervals, which is what I prefer anyway, so I decided to go with them. They were planning on a 16-17mm, which seemed so slow, but for the planned distance (22-23 miles), made sense.
It was a cool, overcast, very windy morning around the lake. About halfway around the second loop, and at approximately 13.5 miles, I was really starting to feel tired and worn out. Chatting with one of the other group members, we decided to start walking at mile 14, and just re-evaluate how we felt periodically about starting to run/walk again. We eventually ended up walking the rest of the second loop and stopping at 18.2 miles. A disappointing finish for me - but I do have one more 20+ mile run left before Disney so I wasn't too upset about it.
As we finished out the loop, we were talking about our planned races and discussing training and race day concerns. Having completed two 18-mile and one 21-mile training runs now, I am doubting my decision to try to do more full marathons (specifically ones on my bucket list like MCM). Now that I'm deep in the heart of full marathon training, I'm realizing just how hard this is. I knew it would be. But, really, this is HARD. I truly don't know that I have it in me to do it again.
At this point in my training, I'm not doubting my ability to finish the Disney Marathon (knock on wood - unless something injury-related happens). But I'm definitely going to have to wait until after Disney to make a determination on whether this distance is something that is really meant for me.
Saturday's Run:
- 18.22 miles; 5:02:59; 16:38 min/mi
