Raced a 10 Miler this morning. Love that distance! Goal was to get in a groove, like i want to feel when i run NYC in 2 weeks. Finished in 1:08:33 = 6:51/mile. 3rd place! Beautiful course (see the view, left) in Huntington Beach, CA. I made the first 5 feel easy and came through @ 6:35/mi. But apparently not easy enough. Second 5 felt harder, sometimes really hard and I did that 5 @ about 7:05/mi.
The NYC Marathon is in 2 weeks. woohoo - i'm really excited. For the most part. For all the reasons that everyone has told me i should be excited about doing NYC - I'm excited. It's THE ONE to do. Cool. Only, its still a marathon, right? Training has been quality, but not quantity. The training plan was to get stronger, efficient, and faster (with much more emphasis on my functional training) before going longer in training, but never quite got to the longer part. So the good news is I'm strong, efficient and injury resistant. And I'm fast - for about 90sec - 3 min and arguably through about 6 miles, but after that, not so much fast. 
Super happy with today's race. Now, looking toward the marathon, I'm simply hoping/planning:
#1: That I'm capable of running a pace, any pace, that allows me to feel A-OK @ 20 miles in the marathon or at least up over the Queensboro Bridge.
#2: That I hold myself back enough and do that pace, whatever that's supposed to be. 8:00? even slower? My hope is that i can run under 3:30 and I'd say the fastest it could be is 3:15 but that's a long shot.
Keep you posted this week. Should i mention I still need to book a flight to the race...!?
