Goals for Grandma's Marathon

So in one of my previous posts I indicated that I would share my goals for Grandma's Marathon in an ABC format, so here they are.... 

C: sub 4 hours. My current PR is 4:04 at the Chicago Marathon in 2009, so I really don't care if its 3:59:59, but under 4 hours is the business of the day.

B: sub 3:45. Now this would put me in the neighborhood of my older brother. He's run the Chicago Marathon 3 times and two of those times he finished 3:43 and 3:44 respectively. This is also important to me because my brother is a former Marine, currently a Phy Ed teacher, and a track coach. He's also about 5'10" 170 lbs and can eat what ever the hell he wants and won't add a pound. Me, I'm 5'6"  150 lbs and I have to watch what I eat a lot more closely than him. Prior to me running, I tipped the scale at close to 200 lbs, so I run to help manage my weight. Besides, who doesn't want to beat their big brother.

The other advantage of running a sub 3:45 marathon is that I would qualify for field 1 of the Pikes Peak Marathon and I would like to run that some day and this would give me 3 years of qualification.

A: sub 3:40.  No dreams of grandeur about qualifying for Boston (I'd need a 3:15 to BQ!), but finishing in the 3:30's somewhere would blow my mind. I think I have it in me and I'll work real hard to achieve this, but certainly won't be disappointed if I come up short of this goal. Mars would have to align with Venus, the moon would have to be full (it won't be, I checked, the closest full moon in 6/15) and the weather would need to be perfect. 

Also, my older brother's best marathon time was 3:32 and if I came even close to that, I would be tickled. Besides, he did that 10 years  ago and was 30 years old at time and I'm 36 now. 

Now before some of you start thinking "wow, this guy really wants to beat his brother", I will say that it's not my main motivation, but I recognize that it's there. My overall goal is to have fun and see what I'm capable to pushing myself to do, but getting close to one of my big brother's marathon time would just be icing on the cake. He makes running look easy and doesn't seem to work to hard at it. I think he could qualify for Boston if he really wanted to and part of me wants to get close to his times to prove to him that if I can run as fast as him, then he can definitely run faster. Besides, I don't think that he'd like if his little (former cigarette smoking, tobacco chewing, beer drinking, overweight, better looking, smarter) brother got close to his times.

Chicago Marathon 2009

post-race Chicago Marathon 2009

Lastly, I wanted to list a few advantages I have this year as opposed to 2009;

• I'll be about 10 lbs lighter. In 2009, I was about 160 lbs. 
• Faster (well duh), but I think working on my 5K speed early in the year really made a difference in my overall speed and that's something I never worked on before. 
• Focus. In 2009 I did my first outdoor tri 3 weeks after Grandma's and wasn't completely focused on just the marathon. This year (although I did an indoor tri in Feb) I've solely worked on running. 
•  Time. And by that I mean I have less of it now than I did in 2009. I have 2 kids now (4.5 yr old and a 13 month old) and making the most of my training time is vital. So I don't "dick around" and do junk miles, I have very specific daily workouts that all have meaning. I don't have time to waste!

I am super anxious to run Grandma's Marathon this year and I'm glad to be sharing it with my good friend Ryan (who arranged for us to crash at his brother's the night before the race, thanks dude!). Who knows, maybe It'll become an annual tradition. I am sad however that I won't have my girls waiting for me at the finish line this year. This is kind of a guys weekend, although we'll be driving home shortly after the race and will be home in time for Father's Day. 

post-race Grandma's Marathon 2009

 Later