The goal guessing game

Three days until the marathon. One training run left to run tomorrow morning. It's time to start preparing. My race day kit has been washed. I've printed out all the instructions and passes I need in order to get to the hotel and the start of the race. Tonight I'll gather everything together and put it in a bag ready for the off.

The forecast at the moment looks pretty much perfect according to the BBC:

Not too hot, not too cold

I'm hoping to use the Endomondo live tracking app on my phone to allow friends and family to track me during the race. I've only just discovered it so I may not be able to get it working perfectly. Also, I'm not sure what the phone signal is going to be like in the Lake District so it may not work anyway. My profile is here for anyone interested (race starts at 10am): Endomondo running profile, click through for a live map update

So, now I have to set some goals for myself.

I have run seven marathons and these have broken down as follows:

sub 3:30 - 1

sub 3:45 - 2

sub 4:00 - 3

4:00+ - 1

My PB is 3:29:57 and I am extremely unlikely to beat that due to the undulating course but I should set it as my A goal anyway.

My B goal will be sub 3:45. I can normally do that with minimal training (albeit on a flat course) so should hopefully get under it.

My C goal will be sub 4:00 as this is normally my upper limit on any marathon. I've only came in over four hours once (4:00:57) on my second marathon which I foolishly ran six weeks after my first. I was definitely not ready for it. So as long as nothing drastic goes wrong then I should be able to get back in one piece under that,

I think I've resolved the problem I had with my video. I took a new one earlier this week and then used a converting tool to put it into YouTube friendly format. This worked much better. It's still a bit shaky but I think it's workable, I'm still not sure I'll take it with me on the marathon though since I don't think it'll capture the run in as much detail as I'd like. I'll also have my phone with me so can take video with that if I want to. Anyway, here's the video from earlier this week when I went through one of my local parks (ignore the time stamp, I haven't set it to the correct date yet and it cannot be removed from display):

I'll write up a race report next week when I am back home. Hopefully the weather will hold out as I am really looking forward to what should be a challenging marathon in a beautiful location.