The Smug Marrieds Guide To Marathon Running

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This weekend marks Blair's debut as a marathoner. He's running Grandfather Mountain, a race which boasts the tag line, "One of America's Toughest Marathons."

You wouldn't catch me running this race on a dare. The course begins at 3,333 feet and climbs to an elevation of 4,279 feet. Up, up, up, ow, ow, ow. But Blair insists he's going to be a "one and done" marathoner, so his rationale is why not make it count?

Observing Blair over the last 16 weeks, I've been amused by the differences in how we approach our training. So here for your reading pleasure, I offer...

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Running Commentary: Three Run Thursday

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And so it begins.

In a little less than an hour, Josh and I will be starting the first of our three runs for the day. We're getting the worst out of the way first. "The Hill" is a nasty 2.8 mile stretch in Mayodan with 7-10% grades that Josh trained on for the Grandfather Mountain marathon and that his wife is using to train for her upcoming half-marathon in Asheville. We'll run it twice. Here's the hill profile (thank you, Iris):

I only got 5 hours sleep last night and my eating was not-so-great yesterday, but I'll probably be tired and off my regular eating patterns on race day, so it's good practice, right? I debated whether to bike yesterday to make sure I was running on tired legs but decided against it. Feeling good about that decision at the moment. More later. 

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