WATCHING MY PACE

Okay, that title is a really bad pun, sorry. Last night was the first run where I really tried to dial in my marathon pace. I had been doing marathon pace runs, but I was shooting for +/- 15 seconds, you know, in the general area. Last night I decided I was going to hit as close to 7:55/mile as possible. That is the pace necessary to hit a 3:30 marathon (assuming your Garmin says 26.5 at the end). I don't know if sub 3:30 will be my goal, but for now I am training for that pace.

So this was the first run where I was really checking my watch... a lot. After the first few miles I pretty much learned to ignore it until at least a quarter mile into a lap, where there is enough data to actually have a reasonable lap prediction. My normal 10k course isn't the greatest for this exercise, as trying to hit even miles on uneven terrain means I had to vary my effort more than I would have liked. You can see that in my pace on the graph below.

Anyways, I was able to do it and hit pretty even miles. Now, in a race you'd want to allow variation for the course, but for this exercise, it worked. I was trying to hit certain numbers and was able to do so.

Let's see, my runs earlier in the week... Monday, super slow seven miles. It was the "All Comers Rollercoaster Night" so I was in a pack with people who don't usually do the seven mile route. Ended up at 9:59/mile, so it was a good "recovery jog" after 18 miles the day before. 25 miles in two days! I then rested up well enough to hit a 7:36/mile tempo run at group on Wednesday.

Pretty even splits on my marathon pace run Thursday.