Exit trial, Kristen (sniff!) and base training...enter hard running and pain

So trial is over. We joke that January 2013 was just one long day. Or just never really happened... lost in the black hole of nothingness. Another murder victim of trial.

However having the ole bestie with me 24/7 pretty well rocked. K and I spent our last day together getting coffee (naturally):

And checking out the Chelsea Markets where we ate some ridiculously good crepes full of cheese and other delicious morsels.

Its always very important to carb-load. You know, for running and stuff. And you need cheese for all its dairy and calcium for the bones.  Moving on.

Last week was the first week out of base training, and into speed and tempo work for my May 5 marathon.

I realized very quickly how much I miiiiiiissed easy running. Running all my miles at 7:50 was intoxicating. You get a real runners high, but you're never tired/sore like you are with hard training. You don't have those first ginger steps out of bed to go to the loo, or the awkward quad-sore waddle, going down stairs.

During my dreamy easy running days, I ran lots of easy miles in Central Park with some lovely snow scenes:

Now Ive added back in speed and tempo (and aforementioned awkward waddling), those "easy" runs more closely approximate recovery runs and edge towards 8:30 avg pace, to give my legs a break.

The week of 2nd-9th of Feb I took off completely from running. I had a few niggles that just needed a couple of days to heal up, which all that dreamy easy running wasn't quite allowing.

Then 10th-16th Feb, 2013 looked like this:
Sunday: 8 easy
Monday: Off
Tuesday: 12x400 at 6:18 with 400 recoveries on 1.5% incline (treadmill). (8 miles)
Wednesday: 8 miles easy
 Thursday: Off
Friday: 4 easy
Saturday: 2 easy, 5 mile tempo (Splits of 7:30, 7:13, 7:06, 6:50, 6:55, 2 easy (9 miles)

Total: 37 miles

Obviously the first thing that sticks out is my complete inability to figure out where my "tempo" marathon place is. HM pace is easy, as its just below that lactate threshold. Marathon pace needs to be below that, but still a concerted effort. Also made harder because I am up in the air about what my marathon pace should be. I feel like my fitness exceeds my current race times, so they are not a good indication of what I should aim for. But even if they were, its my first marathon. So many unknowns. Such a huge possibility of getting dehydrated, hitting the wall or shitting myself.  Frankly, the latter is my major concern.

So the plan is to just test out paces between 7:15-7:30 in my long tempos (8-10 miles) and see what feels manageable and least likely to make me want to puke. Likely scenario is that I'll have a finish time range that I want to be in; run the first half in accordance with the slower end of the range, see how Im feeling then see if I can run a negative split the second half.