There were two options this morning: another long run as per the programme, or some mile repeats with Lee from KHRC. These are aimed at speed training and are something I haven’t tried before.
I decided to get scientific and research pacing properly so I can make informed decisions about things like this. Apparently speed training shouldn’t take up too much of my training schedule – the focus should be heavily weighted towards building up miles. Since yesterday’s parkrun was at the ‘I can’t go much faster than this’ end of the spectrum, I decided against the mile repeats and opted for the regular long run instead. Before setting off I used the results of my not-very-thorough research to map the following paces against weekly runs:
- Tuesday – Intervals/Fartlek at 8.30mm
- Thursday – Easy pace aiming at 9.30-10.00mm
- Saturday parkrun – Intervals/Fartlek at 7.40mm pace
- Sunday – Easy pace aiming at 9.30-10.00mm
So today I set out to do a local 10 mile run and to do it at the easy pace of 9.30 – 10mm.
The splits were pretty much bang on 9.30 and I felt I was plodding along rather than pushing myself. The big question is how much further can I run at this pace before it starts to hurt? And can I get it down to 9.10 in order to get below 4 hours on the big day? And should I even be aiming for a sub-4, which apparently only 25% of marathon runners achieve? Questions that my training will hopefully answer.
My First Marathon 
A good decision. Talk to Lee or Paul or Mike about it but don’t try to do full training runs at race pace. It’s a good idea to add in miles at race pace during your Long Slow Run (but not too man) and also in other runs. Better to run slower in training, not hurt yourself and then push on the big day knowing exactly what your target pace feels like from having run it in training but not all the time. The people who get injured or don’t have a good race, in my experience, are those who got excited about speed on long runs instead of taking it steady. There’s a reason you need 3 weeks’ rest after a marathon and you don’t want to be fatiguing yourself that much during training.
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Thanks Liz. Yes, I’ll be trying to slow my next long run down a bit and see how it feels. I felt really comfortable yesterday running at 9.30 but that was over 10 miles. I’ll be keeping an eye on this as the mileage increases.
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