Recovery run 10 miles today.
I am glad our pacer is back in our group, finally, a group run without having to check time and pace like I did the past two weekends. I just follow the steps of the runners in front of me and let my mind wonder and my body relax.
After the run, I hung around a talked to a few people about their marathon experience. I asked the magic question, what is the distrance of the longest run we should run to train for a marathon? Should we actually run past 26 miles in training to know that we can do it or should be stop a few miles short.
People have all different opinions, but the seasoned marathoner in our group all said they never run pass 22 miles and they taper 2 weeks before.
As I run more and more, and playing around with the distance and recovery, I have new found respect to the will to hold back and allow rest days to conserve my legs instead of running like a fool like I alawys do. That is still the hardest thing to do for me, to ignore pain and soreness and head out for a run is instinct for me, to do otherwise, actually takes exercising some thoughts and constraint.
Good run today, my legs are sore still, my Thursday hill run didn’t help… But I will rest and take it easy this week. 
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 09/13/2008
- Time: 23:17:34
- Total Time: 1:38:00.00
- Distance: 10 miles
- Average Pace: 9:48.24/mile
Your consistency this year has been awesome. Your marathon training will benefit greatly from the huge base you have buit yourself. I agree with the marathoner in your group…22 miles and 2 week taper. 20 just leaves too many questions but you want your first 26 to be on race day, not in training. I am very excited to see your training going so well.