I’ve been planning my attack on the standing marathon record time of 26 ½ hours. I should just do the whole thing at one time and cut my record in half. A big part of the challenge is to find a route that would provide some interest for 10 to 12 hours straight. Without something to look at, this could be a tedious day. Wouldn’t want to count it off on a ¼ mile track either. I love to walk, but I have to walk a different course every day. It would be nice to find something of a straight-line route, but I can’t work that out without encountering more vehicle traffic than I want to walk with. So I’ve been looking at this effort as a series of 5 mile segments. I’ve got a straight line out-and-back bicycle trail of 5 miles that gets me to a nice state park where I can walk a 5 mile loop. All I have to do is figure out two more interesting 5 mile segments and I’ve got it. There is an out-and-back seldom-used road from the state park I could probably turn into a 5 mile segment. Then the walk back the original 5 mile trail to where I parked the car. That would be 20 miles. By then, it’s liable to be dark on these short winter days, so maybe I drive back to the park and finish with 9 laps around our neighborhood inside our park. That could work. That has been my thought process. ….until today. Today I ventured out to test several things: the state park loop, the out and back walk on the seldom used road, the pre-dawn start, and the provision for food and water along the way for such a long walk. At 10 miles, something happened. The conditions were good. I felt good. I still had enough food and water. All my careful planning was set aside and I didn’t stop. No more pre-planned routes, I just kept walking. I walked roads, canals, brushy trails, and looped around, around, and around again inside the state park. First, I established a time of slightly under 4 ½ hours for a half-marathon. Then I went on to walk the entire thing straight through. I’ll have to say I wasn’t as cool the last 6 ½ miles as I was the first 20. I thought only runners hit “the wall” at 20 miles. I never saw that coming. The wall kicked my ass, but I pressed on, not finishing in good form, but finishing nonetheless. My legs are now screaming obscenities at me, but I’m very happy with the result of my effort. 9 hours 50 minutes. I have a marathon time that can be described without reference to a calendar! I suspect the only way to substantially improve my marathon time now would be to actually run some part of it…