women's trials

This was a nice trials. Long story short Magdalena took an early lead and got it up to 1:50 seconds ahead of Denna Kastor- bronze medal winner, and the rest of the pack. She held this lead a long time. Right away I told April that she'd just lost the marathon and that Kastor would negative split and win. I said around 20 Deena should increase pace and eventually will catch her. My thinking being if she slowed Deena would have enough time to counter it, and if she didn't it wouldn't matter anyways.

Around 20 I said Mags only had 3 miles left with the lead. You could tell Mags was hurting because her stride had really shortened and she wasn't turning over as fast as she was- the commentator noticed this a minute after I did. On the opposite side Kastor was chugging and her stride was looking amazing. 3 miles to go she passes. I called a 2:29 and sure enough Kastor comes through in 2:29:34 or so. Not a bad time for that course. I'm not sure what Kastor's times were, but I can almost guarantee she negative split.

I could have just gotten lucky, but I've learned a lot about racing and running over the past year and can read a race well. I know enough to see that conservation of energy and efficiency is king in the marathon. Now I just have to start applying it to myself. Maybe in my next race April can record me. I can analyze pretty well so I think doing this often would be an extra component to add into my training.

Unrelated to the trials I just finished Lydiards book and it is affirming some of the training I've been doing. I also see a lot of gaps that need to be filled in as well. But the good news is my higher mileage goals are right with his teachings- i.e. 100 miles weeks being the goal distance to maintain. He says to do this "as long as possible" or at least 6 months. I plan on being ready to delve into them just after my 10k which is only a month out.