Last Long Run before the Marathon

I have officially begun to taper for the marathon, so today was the last endurance run for a while. I did 160 minutes for a 19-miler. This is not my best effort, but fine, it is good enough.

It was warmer than usual, so it was a good day to make a hydration plan: It turns out that you can over as well as under hydrate. So what you do is weigh yourself before and after a run to get a fix on your water usage. I lost 4 lbs over the course of 160 minutes, which means I should consume 8 oz of fluid every 20 minutes. This is not practical while running a marathon, but at least I don't have to worry about over-hydration.

This week I also got my marathon # and there is some way of using that to have progress texts sent to your phone. I am 9899--yeah! I just made it under the 5-digits. It turns out that your # directly corresponds to your qualifying position. Seems a bit Darwinian to me, but that is how they run it. It is a little daunting; my last marathon only had around 2,000 entrants, this one has about 10,000 people who are all faster than me! Yikes!

Update: I reviewed the numbers and there are 34 times as many entrants to the Boston Marathon who are faster than I am--as compared to the 288 people who beat me in the Bay State Marathon. There are more than 8-fold more fast runners than the total finishers from the Bay State! It is going to be a zoo.