No Speedwork - But FAST Easy Run

My mid-week "longer" run is normally when I do my speedwork.  However, since this is my last taper week - when I'm supposed to rest my body - and the mid-week "longer" run was only 4 miles, I decided to just make it an easy run.

As an aside, for the first 4 weeks of my training, my mid-week "longer" run WAS 3 or 4 miles.  It's pretty ironic that I now feel that this is too short of a run to do speedwork!

With no music, I was able to focus on my running (OK...when my mind wasn't wandering off to think about work stuff or the marathon itself this weekend).  I tried to keep my HR under 150 for as much of the run as possible.  I did a pretty good job as the average HR for the full run was 151.  However, my surprise was when I finished the run and saw my time - 43:22.  This was for a loop that was 4.43 miles, which meant a sub 10 minute mile for an easy run!!!!

I doubt that I'd be able to keep this pace up for 26.2 miles, but if I did I'd run a 4:16:46 marathon.  WOW!  My original goals (and still my current goals) were:

• Finish a marathon
• Finish in under 5 hours
• Stretch goal - finish in under 4:30 (this would mean averaging a PR on both half marathons)

I think I'm well on my way to accomplish these goals (maybe not my stretch goal...but it's not totally out of reach).

Oh, and BTW - I hope I didn't just jinx myself...