PP Marathon training - A Frame

Less than 2 weeks now till race day, so Saturday morning was my last long training run.  The plan: 20 miles on Barr Trail beginning at the race start line and getting up to A-Frame and back.

The result: made it without crashing like last time 3 weeks ago.  Not only did I not fall over going either up or down - I made it up to A-Frame over 10 minutes quicker this time.  I also ran the entire way down at a 9 minute average.  Actually - most of the way down I was going slower than that, but I gradually picked up the pace through the W's to get down to a 9 minute per mile average descent.

The big issue of the day was lack of food / resulting in lack of energy.  Silly me, I need to learn and plan better as this has happened before (more than once) - but I took with me only one Gel / GU and about a dozen jelly beans, along with 2 bottles of water.  Hydration was fine however as the temparature was fantastic to run in.  Lack of food was evident - on race day I need to must bring more / eat more.

I really think that if I had more food early on the way up I would have done much better - especially above Barr camp, the trip down would have been better too.  But still - made my best time up to A-Frame (2:34:20) and a 90 minute trip down for a total time just over 4 hours, covering 20 miles and over 5700' elevation gain.

In an encouraging sign of fitness - I recovered very well post run and next day was able to push out a good 6 mile (flat) tempo run.

Now - it is taper time - still plenty of miles and vertical to run - but coming off 5 weeks of averaging nearly 50 miles per week, with over 45,000' vertical gain in that - my body is tired and needs some revitalising.

With the hard training behind me - I still don't know what to expect or what I am capable of on race day.    Wishful thinking says I will summit in under 3 1/2 hours and descend in under 2 hours.  Reality may be worse than that - or better.  I just don't know.  2 weeks of mental gymnastics could be fun (or not).

I am very pleased with my training - this same time last year, due to July knee surgery, in the month of August I had run 2 (very, very slow) miles, on a flat treadmill.  So, a lot different and a lot better prepared going into it this year.