Pre-race thoughts: The Rover Marathon

  Yes, I've neglected my blog. Fortunately, I haven't neglected my running. The summer began with two very different races. The first was the 32nd edition of the Dia Del Padre half-marathon in Mexico City on June 17. This was a popular race that attracted 14,000 people. The course was straightforward: we ran slightly downhill for the first 10k and then climbed up an exit ramp that took us back up to the finish on a slight incline. I ran steady and in control, and with the exception of a bit of laziness and mind wandering at kilometer 17 and fumbling for my phone to try and make a call so that my daughters would know that I was coming through at kilometer 19, my pace was steady and I had some reserves at the end. I finished in 1:56 and change and probably would put my effort at 93%.  The following week I ran a race that traversed the Sierra De Guadalupe in the northern reaches of the city. This race is yet another classic of the solo para salvajes mountain running circuit and took us through a rugged, point to point course that was 20.8 kilometers long. There were some steep hiking sections, but most of the course was runnable, albeit slowly. It took me 3:01 and change to complete the course. Here's the Garmin data for the race. Again, I felt strong at the end  which made me feel that my training was in a good place for my goal races for the summer.

  And now those goal races are here. The first race is the Rover Marathon, a race that according to my math will climb 3,700+ feet from Mexico City up over the mountains and then down into Cuernavaca. Here's a map of the race:

This will be my first marathon. The second one will be the more traditional city-street style Mexico City Marathon which will be run on September 2. After tomorrow's race I will have one more hard week of training and then a week of tapering. I followed a training program put together by the Hanson's brothers. I modified it a bit by including lots of climbing and hills and a couple extra long runs. My hope was that I could get "two-for-one" with this program if the marathons were close enough together.

After tomorrow's run I'll be able to report back on the folly of that idea. I'm bringing the phone for this one so I should have some lousy pics to share.

  The hay is in the barn, as they say. I hope it's enough.