I came across an interesting article in the Guardian today looking at marathon stats which has got me questioning the sense of setting myself a target time for Manchester.
The article links to a calculator to help predict marathon times based on a recent half marathon result. I tried it and I’m supposed to be looking at 4 hours 42 minutes. I’m not going to put a great deal of store by this – I’m sure I can do better – but it has convinced me I should be more flexible in terms of my easy run pace of 9.30mm. By all accounts that’s a bit too fast and I’ll need to see how it goes as I run further. I’ll be keeping an open mind and won’t beat myself up if I find myself hitting a 10 or 10.30mm pace.
It’s my first marathon and unknown territory and I’m fascinated to see how I’ll cope over the next 81 days!
My First Marathon 
The first marathon is a learning one. Then you go and do one putting into practice all you learned! I certainly found that, but now I want to go back and do the first route I did so I can do it “properly”. Pity it’s all the way over in Iceland …
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Yes, this is the philosophy I’ve adopted. I’m no longer setting a target time and just hope to complete the run in a decent time. As you say, if I enjoy it and do another, I’l have some evidence to base any decisions on.
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