I ran twenty-one miles of the New York City Marathon and then stopped.
That was the plan. More or less.
CIM was five weeks away. The new training sheet called for eighteen to twenty miles at 7:30 pace on Sunday. New York supplied a closed course, aid stations, a huge crowd, and a friend who needed pacing. It was a very elaborate way to get a long run done.
I was not exactly fresh going into it. Friday morning I ran eight 400s at Vassar, starting around 80 seconds and finishing at 75. Saturday I rode 65 miles. It was an easy ride, but easy can still take five hours.
This was not a taper. I was training through New York for California.
Sunday came out to twenty-one miles at 7:35 pace. A friend I was pacing was on the struggle bus from mile eighteen through twenty-one, so we slowed down a little. My foot was slightly sore afterward, but nothing dramatic.
Then I stopped.
The line I put in the training sheet was the honest one: “I def stopped early enough to be able to still work this week :).”
A year earlier, the race had been the whole point. I wanted to break three hours in my first New York City Marathon, and I ran 2:56:51. This year the same course had a different job. It was one workout inside a longer build.
It is still strange to step off a marathon course voluntarily. Everybody around you is moving toward the finish. The whole event is designed to pull you there. Once I had the work I needed, though, another five miles would only make the next week harder.
Monday's entry in the sheet said, “Rested. It was glorious.”
Tuesday I ran again and the foot was fine. Wednesday I did a progression workout on the rail trail in Poughkeepsie and finished the last mile in 5:49, including a turnaround. I had stopped early enough. The week still worked.
Twenty-one was enough.