Hamilton Marathon Training Graphs and Goals

In less than 24 hours I will be toeing the start line of my fourth marathon. The excitement and nervousness has definitely hit me. I think I’m well trained for the race and I’ve assembled my list of goals for Sunday.

• Goal #1: Finish in under four hours
  • Goal #1a: Go through half in 2:00 – 2:01
• Goal #2: Set a new personal best (<4:02:21)
• Goal #3: Finish happy and proud

I would really love to get the four hour marathon monkey off my back. I think I’ve got a good chance to meeting my first goal but I also know anything can happen on race day. Fortunately it looks like the weather will be on my side: variable cloudiness, low/high -3/7C, wind W 15km/h. As per usual I’ve been chanelling my nervous energy into making graphs. To start with I have my weekly mileage over the last 13 weeks. I only missed one run during the entire training cycle (a tempo run in week 12) so the graph looks quite pretty.

Last year I made a graph comparing the 16 weeks leading up to each of my marathon. It wasn’t really feasible to add a fourth set of data to that graph so I had to do something a little different. Here’s what I came up with: a panel chart. What I think is most striking from this graph is how much more training I’ve done this year than last year. The different is mostly more than ten weeks out from the race but I’m hoping the increased volume will help me.

I’ll try to do a quick post on Sunday with at least my finish time and then stay tuned for a blow-by-blow race report early next week!