Pete's Marathon de Nowhere

I have been running ultra trail distances for the last 3 years. In 2015 I ran a 3:07:04 in Toronto after a summer of trail running which culminated in a 100km pacing assignment in Pennsylvania. In 2016, i decided I would run my first 100 miler, so I ran the 120km Petite Trotte à Joan, trained all summer, ran and finished the Haliburton 100 miler and then DNF'd in Philly because of a calf injury. In 2017, I decided i would run another 100 miler at the Eastern States, much thougher than Haliburton, so I needed to ramp up the millage and elevation training. I also thought it would be a good idea to run the Barkley Fall Classic. I ran both and finished both to get my buckle and Croix de Barque. Having learned my lesson in 2016, I decided to not register for a fall marathon, the Marathon du P'tit Train du Nord became my fall marathon project. BUT after my ultra races, I wasn't injured and actually felt quite good, so I decided to participate in a Fatass Marathon event organized by a running friend. The event was a week after the P'tit Train, and I trained as much as i could with Alan, Guillaume, David and Elizabeth. I called it the "Marathon de Nowhere" on social media, and treated it like a "real" marathon. I only had 5 weeks to train for it after BFC, but I still set a lofty goal of sub 3:05 which would have been a PB. I ran the marathon with 4 other runners with 3 water stops along the way. I ran it balls to the wall at sub 3:05 pace till 32km, the pace was given by my friend Olivier so I had no choice but to follow. At the end of the day it was a bit too much for my tired legs nearing 5000km at the end of the month. Still, I managed a 3:08:55 including stops to wait for our pacers and to drink, so a 3:06:45 of running time. Happy with the result and it bodes well for a sub 3:05 PB in 2018 as I will take a break from 100 milers to do marathon specific training.

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