A few more marathon ramblings

It was fun to zoom in to my race photos and then look up on the web site what their finishing times were, where they were from, etc.

The website doesn't even have an age category for 76 year olds, so I never found out how the oldest guy in the race fared.

I have to admit, I'm impressed with people who can run a marathon and then immediately set their sights on the next one, ultimately running several over the course of a few years. Wow!

I'd like to try a marathon at some point where I take it easy during the last 10k, perhaps running 8-1s, and slowing my pace somewhat. I'm curious as to how I'd feel afterwards and the next day.

The competative part of me wonders how fast I could run a marathon if I worked at it for a few years. Could I eventually break 4 hours? Could I maybe even break 3:50? That could be a fun endeaver some day. A related strain of thought is that, while I did train hard for the race, I didn't do any hill training, didn't do any speed work, and missed a whole three weeks close to the race. I wonder how much difference that made.

I wonder how I'd do if I ran a marathon without seriously training for it -- if I were just in good general condition? I'm not sure I'd want to find out, but it could be fun to try it some day and just bail out of the race if I felt like I was going to hurt something.