Wow, those 270 days went by fast. But it’s true, my first marathon is just five days out. Time to dust off the cob webs on this blog and update my four or so readers.

I’m right in the taper phase of my marathon training, for which I’ve logged 775km since the beginning of 2015. This is the most I’ve ever run in my life, logging consecutive 200km months for January, February, and March. What’s more, I’ve been able to do this without taking time off due to injury, and I have to thank coach Scott Fishman for that. In fact, since I started working with Coach Scott, my only time off was the vacation in September 2014.

Progress

In the meantime, I ran a great half-marathon in San Diego in November 2014 (I may or may not write a race report, depending on how bored I get during the rest of the week), improving my PR by over three minutes to 1h31’19”. Earlier this year, I also ran a 10k race in preparation for the marathon and had another huge PR for that (improving by over two minutes to 39’33”).With these successes in my back I feel confident and excited about the upcoming challenge of running a marathon.

Goals

I’ve been disclosing my goals to family and friends since end of last year; I have a C goal (more or less: finish), a B goal, and an A goal. I won’t tell you the exact numbers (I’ll do if we meet in person), let’s just say that exceeding my B goal slightly will theoretically get me into the Boston Marathon, whereas my A goal will have a solid buffer for a BQ. I’ll leave it at that and you can try to figure out the goals by yourself. I will disclose though that my A goal has been adjusted by coach Scott by about five minutes (faster) since January. I blame the preparation 10k result for that.

What’s left

Well, first of all, stay healthy and finish the taper (three runs left). Second, get there. The family and I will be traveling to Hamburg on Friday afternoon. That leaves Saturday for bib pickup, the shakeout run and calming the nerves. Third, toe the line. Fourth, write about the experience (and do a better job at that than with the last three races).