It’s been 14 months since I resumed training after a 7 month hiatus last year due to that torn meniscus. I had been missing running so much, so I was eager to get back into shape… On September 22, 2024, I went to my local track to run 26.2 miles in 3:42. A month later, at 3:31:47. Two weeks later, 3:24:52. One week later, 3:17:11, then 3:09:24 one week later. and 3:12:37 on December 1. From there, it seemed like I settled down with the Corus still stuck to the marathon prediction time of 3:10 +/- 30 seconds.

With the new year came a new Grand Prix and a variety of distances, terrain and race courses, so I had to retrain for hills in particular and abandon the focus on the track marathon measurement. With the Grand Prix successfully completed, I’m now working on improving the pace again, and Koros has finally noticed, lowering his marathon prediction time to 3:06:57. As I regained my confidence and built back some leg strength, I felt like I could get through this. At least give it a try. This Sunday. And on the new track!

I invited my running buddy, Bob, to help me get started. Bob ran the first 6 miles with me and put me on a 1’45” lap pace, which is a 7 minute/mile pace. While I hoped to cover the marathon distance at this pace, my overall goal was to see how long I could maintain this pace, whether shorter or longer.

In these first 25 laps we only had one lap over 1:45, at 1:47, we are great pacers! 😉

Ironically, just as I was about to show Kuro what I was really capable of in a marathon, I had charged my watch the night before but then misplaced it and couldn’t find it as I rushed out early Sunday morning, duh! Instead, I used my old Garmin Forerunner 310XT which isn’t the best in terms of distance accuracy but has a great auto-count mode. Tracking the number of certified laps for the distance is the best way to get the actual mileage, as a matter of mathematics. 42,195 meters divided by 400 equals 105.4875 laps!

After 10 miles (40 laps), I stopped checking the lap time each lap and ran more based on feeling. I was amazed to see the log, afterward, that lap 77 was the first on that inside lap over 1:45, at 1:48. All other laps were in the (-3, 0) second range, which shows why doing speed drills on the track is important to maintain a consistent pace in a safe environment.

Lap 85 is when I started to show signs of fatigue, as I lost a few seconds on each lap, for a total of 36 seconds over the last 22 laps.

My glutes and hamstrings were getting stiffer so I decided to stop after the marathon mark, completing 106 laps in 3:04:51 (26.346 miles, 7:01 min/mile). Because I used my Garmin watch, Coros did not revise its prediction of 3:06:57, even after I uploaded this activity showing a distance of 27.52 miles. I’ll have to do it again with that Corus watch for you to believe me…!

It was a lot good Despite work, my legs are very tired on Sunday evening.

Except for all of the Corus metrics (cadence, stride length, heart rate, …), I’ve included a long list of course stats (as noted above, distances and strides are a bit off with this old watch, especially on the track).