PR and Damaged Psyche

I'll post a full writeup of the Fargo marathon soon, but i just wanted to post my result and some initial thoughts I've had.

My official time was 5:12:53. I was able to PR by about 37 minutes.  It wasn't by initial goal, but it was a good backup goal and I am proud of what I was able to achieve. However my goal of 4:38 was not achieved.  It would have been hard to do, but I still think it was possible if I would have run a smarter race.

In each of my three runs this year that have gone at least marathon distance I've gotten my ass kicked. While I can make excuses about still learning how to run these distances I haven't really had much success at any race longer then a half marathon to this point.  With an ambitious plan to possibly run as many as 4 ultras this year I really have to question if I'm ready for such an undertaking. Perhaps I should focus on shorter distances this year and look to do longer events the following year.  I think there's a good chance I could bang out a 50 miler in 12 hours, but do I really want to suffer for 12 hours?  I could regroup and do a better job building base mileage and get better at the marathon distance before pushing further again.

I know it's easy to be hard on myself so recently after the Fargo Marathon when I'm still feeling the aches and pains and time will probably change my opinions.  I felt it was important to get this written down before feelings change and these ideas are forgotten.  Whatever I decide to do should be thought all the way through and these are valid points to consider.