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I spent a lot of years as a competitive runner, and I wish that I was the first to congratulate you on the decision, but I guess I missed this thread the first time around. Anyway, good luck!
I've run either one marathon or roughly 40 (as best I can guess), depending on how you count it. I've only been in one marathon race (Chicago, 1996, 3 hr, 0 min, 7.1 sec), but I spent several weeks adding base milage where my long runs were scheduled to be between 25 and 30 miles. The first time I ran the distance, I was only scheduled to do 25 but I felt good at the end and just tacked on another 1.2 miles just to see if I could do it. My best time was 2 hr, 31 min, 8 sec with a couple of buddies on a most certainly uncertified course. It was almost definitely off since we went 35 seconds past the 13 mile mark before we turned around. That one hurt a little at the end since there were some egos getting exercised at 12 when some mouths (ok, mine) started running and the pace just kept dropping. I'd have to check my logs from a couple years to get an exact number of 26+ mile days, but there have to be at least 40 given my macrocylces at the time.
The Twin Cities Marathon is supposed to be great, and I've run parts of the course a few times. It's a little bumpy, but the crowds are supposed to be great. Have fun and let us know how it goes!
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