Relay race ruminating

I was looking at information about the Cape Cod Marathon last night and read some comments from people who characterized the course as fairly challenging. Given the elevation profile they list on the marathon website I'm willing to believe that. I guess it would be brutal to face all those hills over 26.2 miles. As I ran on Saturday and Sunday I thought about that fact that I'm training for a marathon relay. If all goes according to plan on Sunday I will have run more miles in a single day than ever before. Still, my two legs only add up to a little more than a third of the marathon distance. As I attacked those hills on Sunday I thought about the 1,000+ people on race day that will need to run every foot of the course. That takes a combination of fitness and commitment that I cannot match at this point. Running a full marathon would involve some significant weekly distance although, according to the website Cool Running, you can get by with the 20 or so miles per week that I do now. I don't buy that since there is NO WAY that I could run 26.2 miles in a single day, let alone within 4 hours.

I'm thinking about next year's running goals and a half marathon is definitely under consideration. I will need to expand upon my personal distance record of 7.6 continuous miles and that, perhaps, is another goal for 2010. I'm planning to run about 8 more miles before Sunday and give myself one rest day before the race. I've learned a lot in the four races I've run this year and I hope to apply this experience and knowledge on Sunday. I'm excited for a lot of reasons including the fact that I'll be competing, for the first time, in my home state.