What is my marathon pace? How is one supposed to determine that number?
I want it to be 4:50. So do I just start training as if marathon pace is 4:50 until I can run a marathon at 4:50? Yeah....right. My mile race PR is only 4:44 and I was coughing up lungs after doing that. It blows my mind to think of running that pace for a marathon.
So how do I really settle in upon a goal pace to start training for?
I don't know the answer. But somehow I have arrived upon the number of 6:03 pace and convinced myself that it is a possibility for me to do that pace for a marathon in the near future. And so I've started training with that goal in mind.
And I've tentatively picked the Santa Barbara marathon on November 12th to shoot for. Which is just over 10 weeks from now.
And so I've taken Brad Hudson's training plan from his book 'Run Faster' and adapted the workouts to fit my schedule and am in week 9 of his 20 week program. And today that called for the following workout:
3 miles easy, 8 miles @marathon pace, 3.5 miles easy.
My splits for the 8 miles: 6:14,6:01,6:06,5:59,5:57,5:58,6:03,6:04. Ended up averaging right at my goal of 6:03/mile average interestingly enough.
I started at the junction of marshall and cherryvale, ran down sobo creek, bobolink, north to creek path/valmont. The first 6 miles were gradual down hill, the last two were rolling and net flat. I wanted to do a gradual down hill start on this workout since it was my longest marathon pace workout yet and I wasn't sure how it would go, and I wanted to make sure I could lock into the 6:03 pace for the whole time without having to push it too hard at the beginning. It worked out well.
But 6:03 pace for another 18 miles? I'm pretty sure I would not quite pull that off right now. I'm going to need every training session for the next 10 weeks to get myself closer to that level. And I'm probably going to need every extra ounce of oxygen sea level can offer me.
It was a pretty solid workout this morning. It wasn't too taxing, but wasn't easy either. Marathon training is interesting. It's a lot different than mile and 5K training. The miles don't feel that hard, but they just keep on coming. But I really like the feeling of just locking into a decently fast pace and cranking away for 48 minutes. It's a good one.
