Not well planned or executed, but confidence building. To be fair the goal today was just to get a feel for pace and what I could handle on flat selections of Ogden half marathon. Ran 3x2 miles at goal half marathon pace. Went out top hot and had to reel it back in. Fortunately I'd planned to give myself like 4-5 mins rest between reps and that turned into a mile easy. Goal today was just to get the legs moving faster and see what sub 70 half pace would feel like. Splits were 5:10, 5:22 5:24, 5:23 5:22, 5:19 Low 5:20s on the roads felt pretty sustainable. Definitely had to throw in some surges now and then to keep the pace from dropping to where I'm more comfortable around 5:40, but I wasn't suffering on the last 2 reps. I think my actual half marathon pace rn is probably closer to 5:30, hopefully a little under that. But with Ogdens course being net 600 foot drop I think sub 70 is possible in May. My main takeaway from today is that 5:24 pace on a flat hm course would be doable with a little work. Salt lake Marathon declined my elite application which is fair considering I've never run a marathon and I ran a 77 in my only road half. But between that and some friends signing up for the Ogden half recently I'm tempted to go back to my original plan of sub 70 at ogden half and then sub 2:30 at Des news marathon. I think I might make my goal at Des news a little more aggressive, like 2:27. I also feel my salt lake training plan has been a little rushed. I'm trying to squeeze in a lot of high intensity and high volume into a short window and between taper and recovery running SLC would take out like 5-6 weeks of quality training.. . Would be frustrating if I end up missing my goal and lowering my potential for Des news. It would probably be smarter to give myself time for plenty of good quality targeted weeks... but I also think I really could hold 5:40s pace for a marathon and it's only 2 months away And there's no guarantee I'm in this shape again next year... Hard to decide but I'm leaning towards skipping salt lake. |