Jumper 2.0

Just a few thoughts to remind myself of later when I train for the next marathon.

1) I need to train more long, I didn't respect the distance well enough! I do respect the distance but I didn't. As I said in my last post, my long runs are on Sunday. I work every 3rd Sunday, 12 hour shifts, and then a Holiday or two fell on Sundays as well. That in itself is not a problem. The problem is that I didn't make up for it. I would just chalk it as a loss and figure the next week will be enough.

So here are my long runs this year:

1/25 - 10 miles  9:57 pace
2/22 - 13 miles  9:31 pace
3/1 -   10 miles, suppose to be 15 but I had a full day of downhill skiing with my son. Cross training. 9:09 pace
3/15 - 15.8 miles  9:18 pace
3/22 - 15 miles 9:18 pace
4/5  -  18 miles 9:42 pace
4/26 - 20 miles 9:27 pace
5/3   - 16 miles 9:18 pace. Suppose to be 22 miles!

And that is it!

2) My blood pressure is slowly getting better! 144/84 this morning, 145/86 yesterday! I'll keep you updated about this. The reality is that there is a certain level of caffeine that has a real negative effect on my blood pressure, and it appears to be cumulative. I can have a coke today, as long as I don't have 2 of them everyday. I am not sure why but this seems to have been "proven" by me a couple of times at which I ignore later thinking that it's stupid to think it's the caffeine. But I can't argue with my blood pressure.
I will still see my doctor about this but obviously it is not as urgent as if the bp had remained really high like the 170/110 I had one day last week.
One thing for sure, high bp like this could very well have had an effect on my training and may have been why I thought I was over-trained a few weeks ago.
Look at my paces above. These were long runs without a taper. You can see why I thought I could do a marathon at a better than a 4 hour pace!

3) My nutrition didn't feel too bad. They didn't have a free gel pack @ mile 18 like at TC so I should have prepared a little better. On this day I accepted oranges from people along the course. I forget what miles they were at but when I ate them they felt like they completely revived me. I just may have to bring my own orange slices on future marathons and training runs.

bib number:    275
age:    41
gender:    M
location:    Roseville, MN
overall place:    295 out of 453
division place:    47 out of 68
gender place:    222 out of 314
time:    4:28:21
pace:    10:15
10 k:    55:39
13.1:    2:01:14
20 m:    3:11:22
last 10k:    1:17:00
gun time :    4:29:12

No family out at this one so pictures are few. I don't mind. Do not think I'm putting myself down but I am just not photogenic. I am shocked when there is a photo of me that looks good.

Me and the highly loved IronJenny. I wonder if I always slouch or is it just for pics?

 If there are any pics of me on the course, I'll post them once they're put online!
Unless they are pics after mile 20! ;-)