Week in review and oh yeah, I ran a marathon

This week was a little bit higher mileage than I had planned for a reason that will be obvious in a second. 65 miles in about:

M: 6 easy
Tu: 6+ easy
W: 8.5 relatively fast - first 7 in 44 or so
Th: 6 easy
F: planned 0
Sat: 11.5, last 8.5 at sub 7 pace
Sun: 26.2 :)

On Sunday I had decided not to race since I had not really done any race-paced workouts since late September. But I had a bunch of friends in town for the race so I decided to pace one of them through his first HM. He wanted to break 1:40 and we ran a 1:37 together. We had been pacing with another friend on and off for the first 13 so after I went though the chute I ran back out and decided to see if I could catch up with him and run with him for a bit. He was struggling a bit with some GI issues and seemed like he could use the company.

Of course, the last 13 miles of the Philadelphia marathon is an out and back, so once I had done a few I decided I might as well just run the whole thing with him.

He's a 3:05 guy so when the 3:20 pacer passed us while he was in a porta-john he decided the pressure was off and we just jogged it in just under 3:30.

I have never run over 18 before, so it was a fun experience. I made sure to hit the Hash beer station on the way in and out of Manayunk. :) I also enjoyed the whole crowd experience. Very different from even the HMs I have run.

My knees are a little sore today but other than that I feel great.

Now I want to race one for real. I need to figure out when and where.

Chicago? I've heard it's one of the best fast races with fantastic crowd support, but obviously the weather was a disaster this year.

Steamtown? This is a local race for me and a sentimental favorite. It's fast, but not a lot of crowd support and the family could probably only catch me at the end.

Philly 08? Good course, easy to get family to.

Try to get a BQ in December and run Boston in the spring?

Hmmm...