It's getting close now

The Gold Coast Marathon is only just over 3 weeks away and I think I'm ready. Compared to my last half at this stage I didn't even know I was running it and my long run was only 15km.

The last couple of weeks haven't quite gone to plan as I've missed two speed sessions but on the flip side I've done my longest long run (18km) in almost two years.  Thanks to Helen, my long run running partner, I managed to run my fastest ever 10k and finish the 18k in under two hours. More surprisingly I did 16.5km of it pushing the pram. 

My short tempo run today had me doubting myself for a while today. Last weeks run had me averaging 6:34min/km over 18km, whereas today I was at 7:04min/km. By all rights today should have been faster but what I forgot to take into account was the terrain.  All I can say is that the hills around the western suburbs suck. 

Once I had a look at the "flattish" and downhill sections of my run today I would have been sitting around the 6 - 6:10min/km with quite a lot of sub 5:30min/km areas too.  Now I'm not feeling as bad and just wondering what I can actually pull out of my hat in a few weeks.  This weekend I'm doing my first event since having Adelaide WITHOUT the pram. While it would make for a good 14k training run I'm more than happy to leave her with her grandparents for a couple of hours and see how I go.