Race reports · 2023 · Marathon Readiness Series 1 of 5 · by Michelle
Norman Tamanaha 15K: the marathon build gets a bib
9.3 miles in August, a week after a training week with hill sprints, a ridge ride, and a Koko Head hike in it.
This is where the marathon build starts wearing a bib, and it's also where the year starts feeling like a plan again, which suits me, because I like a plan. The Marathon Readiness Series is five races between August and November, each one longer than the last: 15K, 20K, 25K, 30K, and then a half marathon a month out from the marathon. That's the long-run progression from every marathon plan on the internet, except with aid stations and other people. In 2023 we let the calendar be the plan and it held up, and for a routine person that's the dream, as somebody else wrote the schedule and all I had to do was show up to it.
The 15K is race one, about 9.3 miles in August, so it's hot from the first mile and stays that way. We ran it as a long run with a bib, because the marathon was four months away and the series had four more races in it, and what was there to win in August? Nothing, really, though I'll admit I still looked at the card afterward. The information I actually wanted was simple, how do nine miles feel in the heat with a number on and what did I eat that worked, and the racing gets saved for December. The card said 1:33:19, 10:01 a mile, seventh in my age group, and Jay was seventh in his too, at 1:14:16.
It sat in the middle of August, a week after a training week with hill sprints, a ridge ride, and a Koko Head hike in it, and that's what a fall looks like here. The running series carries the marathon build, and the long rides carry a full-distance question that was starting to get asked out loud in our house (I heard it, and I wasn't ready to answer it yet). Two weeks after this one, that meant 112 miles around the island.