Last Long Run before Niagara Marathon!

I guess the first thing to get out of the way is that we've confirmed that I'm doing the Niagara Falls International Marathon next weekend, which runs from Buffalo, NY to Niagara Falls, Ontario primarily along the Niagara Parkway which runs beside the Niagara River. Coach Brian Watson is going to pace me.

The next exciting news is that we have a whole crew of people from the Shamrock Running Club joining us: Paula Muxlow and Gwyn Hayman have been training for this run for quite a few months, now, and are both doing the marathon. Kelly Vivian, Jody Durand and Mary Ondrejicka are doing the half marathon. Rita Lewis is going to cheer on Mary and the others halfers. And one of the newer members of our group, Heather Mutter, is doing the 5K.

But the really exciting news is that Jed de Jong has decided to give it a shot a the Niagara Falls International Marathon! He's feeling very good and ran an excellent 16 miler with Brian and me today. He won't be targeting a 3:30 finish, though. He needs 3:35 to qualify for Boston, so that's what he's shooting for, which makes 100% sense.

Today's run was excellent. The weather was cool to start with (about 14 degrees C - 57 degrees F) and by the time I started from my house, Jed had already run from his place in Lucan -- about a 5 mile run on its own -- to meet us. Brian showed up about a minute and a half later and off we went.

As with my Friday run, the wind was right in our face for the first kilometer -- but for the rest of the run into Lucan, the wind was at our side which helped to keep us cool.

We then did a 6 mile loop to the southwest of Lucan and escorted Jed home, he having done his 16 mile run with no problems.

Brian and I made our way back to our place but by now the wind appeared to have shifted slightly so that our westward run had us hitting the wind at about a 45 degree angle -- certainly enough that it was making us work. With 2 miles to go, I happened to mention that I had a couple of cold Coronas in my fridge and, apparently subconsciously, we both picked up the pace a bit. :-)

Overall, we had targeted 8:30 per mile and, in fact, did 8:29 per mile according to my GPS. Can't get much closer than that!

We celebrated our excellent run with a couple of beers out on porch outside our living room, which was quite pleasant. The beer certainly tasted good, especially considering that within an hour or so, it was getting unseasonably warm.

So, one week go to. The weather is still going to be a question mark, but all signs so far are that it should be back to seasonable. The Weather Channel's long range forecast has us at a low of 5C (41 F) to a high of 12C (54 F), partly cloudy (good!) with a 10% percent chance of precipitation. Should be ideal.

7 more sleeps!