The last official day of summer , and 49degrees this morning. After Saturday being 100 degrees my official first day of marathon training was better than GREAT!

As I started at the office to head north on the Monon , I had decided to explore the new Westfield portion of the trail .

To my surprise after the asphalt ended at about 169th Street , it turned into crushed stone , and well it was great .  I my opinion I hope it remains unpaved .

The weather was so awesome to run today , that I just kept heading North , wondering when the trail would end .  Well at 5.6 out and the trail continuing northwest I figured the best thing to do was head back .

So after 7 miles , I wore the Garmin , it was time to see how I really did feel and if the past 6 weeks have gotten me in decent marathon training shape.

It has and I was able to comfortably drop my pace by 75 seconds per mile the last 4 miles  and have felt great all day .

So now its time to quicken the pace during the week and look toward the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon Half .  Anything in the 1:30's will be fine because I don't think I have said  the Big Sur Marathon in April is the prize.

Yep, first marathon in 6 years , also a bucket list marathon . Tough course , beautiful course , my type .  I love rolling / hilly marathons as I am able to use all my leg parts instead of the same muscles mile after mile .

So all I hope for is a somewhat mild winter so I can get good long runs in .  It looks like I will need to head to Eagle Creek for loop after loop up the hills ( not Big Sur type hills ) but better than Carmel hills ( lol )

Thanks to my buddy Doug for the challenge and Asics for the comp entry . All I need now is a buddy that has free airfare access