Over the hill

Ian, Have you looked over my blog before St. George? Sure St. George is a fast course, but I got 3:00:41 with dramatically worse training than you have been doing. You will smash 3 hours! Your question should be whether you should be going for 2:50 or 2:55, I am thinking. I am still a marathon novice, but for what it's worth, that's what I think about your capabilities.

Thanks for the comment Michelle, there's a quote from Bill Rodgers "the marathon can humble you" and that was exactly the case with me. I'd ran numerous 1/2 marathons under 1:30 before I entered the marathon and I was pitching for 3:10. The Limes marathon I ran in May is very hilly but I'm strong in hill races. The course goes uphill, then back downhill nearly back to the start, where we pealed off from the half marathoners to go all the way back uphill again. It was a very hot day, I'd drank at every waterstation but at the 30k point I started struggling. The last 5k was a nightmare and I could only walk/jog in, losing 4 places in the last 2k to finish 9th. I ended up receiving medical attention past the finish line and afterwards vowed no matter what to finish strongly. The downhill marathon was on a mountain walking holiday and was just a confidence booster. I'd planned on running another marathon this Sep/Oct but bottled it, running a 1/2 instead. Now I'm going to chip away at the marathon next year but with more respect. By the way, you ran great last Fri, it was exciting to read.