14 Weeks to Napa Valley Marathon

This bird is eyeballing me carefully, but didn't fly away 

This was a good week: 41 miles.

After dealing with many lost days of running due to all the bad smoke in the bay area, I changed my thanksgiving flight, at Toni's suggestion, to Sunday the 18th and "Got out of (smoky) Dodge".

A bonus is that I was able to attend the birthday of my brilliant, hardworking, science-loving niece, Louse. (Louise is also this year's Rose Queen of the Rose Parade)

You'll notice she's got her glasses on in these photos and videos. She's the first Rose Queen to do that...making me ultra-proud.....Brainy girls rule!

I was also able on Monday to get in a 13 mile run in the clean Pasadena air.  (Has anybody ever uttered those words before? 😆)

I had 3 more runs in Pasa before we returned home on Saturday....after some great Thanksgiving food and festivities. The air at home had been made squeaky clean by the rain that came midweek so I took a rest day Saturday and did a 15 mile run on Sunday.  

A lot of this running in Pasa and home was done on roads, nor soft dirt: I need to toughen up my legs for road running. 

The 15 miler took the starch out of me but my right side glutes held up pretty well for the whole run. I slowed down from a 10:30 average during the last 3 miles..and ran about 11:30 min/miles. 

I have been noodling on what my marathon pace will be. Obviously it depends on the next 14 weeks of training.  My pace 10 years ago was about 10:08 min/mile and I had no fade. Age grading puts that pace at 11:00 min/mile. If I look at my training at the time I logged a ton of miles, including some 50 mile weeks (!). 

So it's all a bit unclear. My overarching goal is to finish the marathon at all..my stretch goal is to run a 10:30 min/mile pace.  Right now, I think I would  start at 11:00m/m for the first half and see how it goes from there.