The 20 Delta....

Okay, so I am only getting slightly timelier with my postings. The goal is to have them done by Sunday, however, I had a rather soul destroying week of unpleasant discoveries resulting in the 20 delta.

First, the known factor:  my personal record for a full marathon is Four (4!) hours.

My qualification time for Boston is 3 hours 40 minutes (3:40), thus, my first 20 delta. I’ve known this for quite some time and realize that a 20 minute improvement over 26.2 miles is quite the endeavor.  But, I know it’s possible and many women have accomplished it.  And I’ve also known to accomplish this time I must run 8 minutes 43 seconds per mile for the entire distance.

Well, here comes the surprise. It was revealed to me by a devilishly handsome man with the marvels of an iPhone at his fingertips that I in fact need to run an 8 minute 23 second pace to reach the 3:40 goal!!

Ummm.. WTF!! So for months, no wait, years, I’ve been reaching for the wrong goal. It’s not even a faster goal…but another 20 Delta faster!  Seriously, I am not even sure where I came up with the idea that I needed to run an 8:43, perhaps it was for a different race. I seriously have no clue.

I am clearly not a mathematician, but I can’t believe I made this mistake! I know I’ve been running pretty consistently under an 8:43 mpm, but it was still quite a shock. Mostly the disappointment lies in the fact that I am going to have to take speed work seriously and that I don’t have as much in the speed bank as I thought. The fact is that I somehow tricked myself into thinking that this upcoming qualification race in New River was going to relatively easy. This is a misconception that is better to be cleared up sooner rather than later to avoid further disappointment.

However, I am ok with the idea that I may be running another marathon in the autumn to be sure to make this a BQ year.

Saturdays run, was just average. The temperature was much more mild, but I ran significantly slower than last week’s 13-miler. I was still within my 60-90 second threshold, but I couldn’t help to feel a little disappointed. This could be, because I was running with a partner for the majority of the run and we were having a good ole’ catch up chat. Although the run itself went relatively well, the recovery was not so great. It seems that I didn’t refuel quick enough and my blood sugars got way to low and I slipped into the ‘over-hungry sickness.’ Really, really unpleasant, I did manage to recover though and am happy that this week is a taper week. I look forward to running round the Belgian countryside this weekend!

The 20-Delta=a little black cloud;  Low-blood sugar=nauseating; BQ Qualification=2011; Over-coming the 20 Delta=imminent