First iron weekend

Saturday RIDE 28 miles in 1:35
Sunday RIDE 18 miles in 60 mins, RUN 9.6 miles in 1:44 (9:15 m/m)

The weekend was raining (at times snowy), cold, wet, windy. It would have been a lot to ask to have the first winter weekend be all outdoors maybe, but after yesterday's 65+F weather you'd be silly to not at least hope a little bit...  But no, the warm weather rode in ahead of a major storm system.

Saturday's ride was the first in months (all summer too?) that I've dedicated myself to a 90 min workout of specific goals. The majority of the ride was ILTs and VG sets -- drills and gear changes -- the time goes by fast with that distraction. Then a 30 min even effort time trial, I aimed for the same pace as a ride earlier this week: 9.5 miles covered. This all felt easy breezy.

Sunday was another cold wet day, and ideally the ride would have followed the run. But winter days aren't always ideal. I get up at 4am, the sun doesn't get up until 7am. So I switched the order to ride in the dark a bit. This ride just focused on a steady aerobic effort.

The run was supposed to be only 55 mins (and the ride only 30 mins!) but at mile 3 I was feeling so good I thought about extending to 9 or 10 miles. It was mid-30's and windy, and I was as always over-dressed :)  I did a TGP out-n-back feeling light, fast, strong, and getting excited about the upcoming marathon. It's 5 months away still, but I can be excited!

What are my goals for the marathon? My 26.2 PR is 4:06 set back in 2010! I know I can improve on that, even if it does turn out to be a hilly course. But what kind of PR? This past summer has shown that even without my usual specific goal training plan times I can PR pretty nicely. I'd love to get under 4 hours, but geez that should happen anyway! The two stand-alone marathon's I've done were years ago and conservative. Why not shoot for 3:45 or 3:30?! That's not to say I'll hit that 3:30 goal, but why not think about it?! Well let me re-think about it!! CoolRunning says that's a 7:58 pace. LOL. I'm not sure I'm there yet. A 3:45 is an 8:35 pace. Maybe more do-able?

Or Think Like A Bumblebee...?