Dress Rehearsal - 7 miles w/ 2 miles at marathon race pace. 6:17 am, 58° F, 43% humidity, wind 12 S. This is the only weekday this week that my training plan doesn't specify recovery pace, so I took the opportunity to run a little faster. I was trying to hit 8:00 on the MP miles. I came close, but the effort was more than it should have been, particularly on the 2nd of those two miles, which was mostly uphill. I hope that that pace feels easier on a flat course at sea level on Saturday. The 6th mile fell under my designation of 8:30 for fast miles, but I called it a slow mile anyway because I really did ease up on the pace for that mile, but it was mostly a gradual downhill, so it came out a little faster than the effort would warrant. I'm wondering about getting on pace for the marathon on Saturday. In my training runs, I always do my first mile or two slowly. And in shorter races, I always run at least 2 miles at a really slow pace before the race starts. But 26 miles is plenty long enough and I don't want to make it 28. I'm wondering if I can manage to go out at a decent enough pace that I don't lose a lot of time on those first couple of miles. Maybe adrenaline will do it and I'll just have to be careful not to go out too fast. Anyone have a suggestion of what pace I should try to hit on the first couple of miles?
AP: 8:39. Splits: 9:24, 8:56, 8:52, 8:03, 8:01, 8:23, 8:52.
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