Marathon Season begins

So my first race of the year is Saturday, the Lake Wobegon Marathon.

Am I ready, yes and no, Yes as I have gotten in some training but it wasn't as much as I was hoping for and no as I still have some issues with the foot and I have not lost the weight I figured I would lose. Oh well, I will be in no hurry and my plan is to simply take what my body is capable of doing and seeing what happens. Worst case I DNF all other cases say I finish. As a reminder to myself, my goal is to finish.

I will again be using the Galloway method, I am not sure what time intervals yet, that will be a Saturday morning decision. Over the last few weeks I have tried a variety of time intervals, ranging from 4 minutes running - 1 minute walking to 60 seconds running - 40 seconds walking to 45 seconds running - 30 seconds walking to 30 seconds running - 20 seconds walking. The good news is that they all work and I should be able to run between 12 and 13 minute miles. Here is Galloway's recommendation from a recent podcast, you can also check out his website.

Galloway
Pace/Mile	Ratio	Ratio	Ratio
13 to 14	30-30	20-20	15-15
12 to 13	45-30	30-20	15-10
11 to 12	60-30	40-20	30-15
10 to 11	90-30	60-20	30-10
Sub 9	120-30	80-20	40-10

On my final longish run (17 miles) I did find the short duration bursts (30-20) to possibly work the best as my HR never got higher than 125 although I did have a low sugar or something moment where things fell apart for a few miles around mile 12 or so. One negative of the short bursts is that it did take some mental energy to stay on task. I hadn't thought about the effect of using Galloway on HR, but in reviewing the data over the last 3 long runs it does keep the HR lower by 5 to 15 beats per mile over the distance which makes sense. Does that help extend the distance, I don't know but I will be experimenting all summer so maybe I will figure it out.

Time to focus on resting this week so I hit the line feeling good.