I skipped cross-training yesterday so I moved up the 9-mile tempo run to today. Actually it wasn't much of a tempo run. I just wanted to get under a 7:00 min./mi. pace and it took all of my will power to do it. With about two miles to go I realized that I could make a 6:50 pace and just barely made it at the end (last week I wrote that I wanted to break 1 hour, but there was no way I could do that today). That's an important pace because if you want to go under 3 hours in a marathon, you need to go under a 6:51.92 pace (check out the pace calculator at Cool Running). So, to do that in Boston, I would need to keep the same pace I ran today for another almost 18 miles. That would be impossible for me today, or anytime soon, given the effort it took just to do it for nine miles. So, I have a lot more training to do if I want to even start thinking about braking three hours. Here's my breakout:

Lap 1: 7:00 min./mi.
Lap 2: 7:00
Lap 3: 6:30
Lap 4: 6:42
Lap 5: 6:49
Lap 6: 6:33
Lap 7: 6:54
Lap 8: 6:39
Lap 9: 7:05

Total: 9.00mi Run (1:01:16; 6:48 pace; 1076 cal.; 149 lb.)