Wheeler Farm Loops

Incredible workout Jake! Glad I could help you out for less than half of it. :) The 1:08:59/1:08:59 on the CIM course might make more sense with the early downhills but I suspect you could pull off the 1:10/1:07:59 too.

Great workout. You already know this, but negative splits is the way to go in the marathon. It can be daunting mentally to sign up for negative split strategy, but it's certainly the smartest move. Good luck with your strategic decision.

The reason the 1:10 first half is desirable in my mind is you can work with Fritz and Nate and expend as little mental energy as possible while making it a lot more enjoyable. If you feel relatively fresh at the half, 1:07:59 would then feel very achievable.

I'm locked into the negative split strategy. It maximizes my chances of breaking 2:20, which is the main goal. Nothing I've done in any race or workout would suggest I should be running 2:17 anyways. And besides, you can do a lot of damage in the last 10 miles if you feel good. No one ever ran a great marathon because of the first 10.

Great workout today Jake. I'm no expert but absolutely agree with everything said above. Your best marathon to date (UVM 2011) was a negative split. Stick with that plan, that is what you are best at and that is what will lead you to success.

Below is the breakdown of 2011. I don't know any of the runners but I suspect the best performances relative to ability were the negative splits. Good times can obviously be run with either approach but I agree with the rest of you that the your best performance/fastest time on most courses is to run a negative split.

1 negative

2 even

3 positive

4 positive

5 positive

6 positive

7 negative

8 negative

9 negative

10 negative

I actually went back yesterday and looked at the Top 25 Men for the past 8 years.

18% Negative Splits

18% "Even" (I called anything up to a +1:30 positive split as even)

64% Positive Splits (> +1:30)

So you can look at that two ways... this is a course that requires going out a little harder (wrong), or nearly 2/3rds of people overestimate their abilities :-)

If I have time I'd be interested to see if the pattern holds true for the women as well.

Even effort is always the most efficient way to run a distance race... its just very hard to know EXACTLY where that line is. That's the big challenge.

Obviously the course profile plays a role in the approach. But you should still always approach it with less effort in first half and plan on picking up effort in second half.

Depending on course profile you could technically positive split off of a "negative split effort".

Definitely. TOU is a great example of that. Even effort yields a faster first half by probably 2 minutes or so.

Same goes for Boston. Nate and I were talking about that this morning. He actually negative split there I think, but we agreed that a 1-2 minute positive split is really a negative split effort there. But NOT the 10 minute positive split that I ran there :-)

I anticipate that there will be a handful of guys that go for the OTQ and have pretty significant positive splits. There is nothing better for confidence and motivation than getting progressively faster and catching people at the end of a race!

Great workout. I know how you feel about calculators and the like and context matters. However, even if the first few miles were at the same pace as your first mile today, running 5:17s later in the race might be "easier" (based on 1% negative split for 2:19:50).

I always try to tell myself "you only need to be on pace by about the 10 mile mark or halfway." In my case this makes sense, perhaps less so for a 2:2X person. But I think at any level more minutes are lost in the final 10k than seconds are gained in the first 3+ miles.

I think that holds true even for someone running 2:20. Get to your goal pace somewhere between 5-10 miles. Lock in. What are you really going to bank in the first 10K... 30 seconds? You can lose that in a single mile (or even half-mile) lapse at the end. And its usually a lot more.

Very impressive workout Jake.

I figured but I don't like to assume my experience, knowledge, or ability is either generalizable or comparable.

Why aren't you using your Timex, young man, if you took the time to measure your loop?

Because we messed up measuing back the mile marks after #1 and now there are (luckily small) green paint marks on the road that aren't verified as accurate! :-0 So, I need to re-measure this weekend. And possibly get a new color of spraypaint.

Haha. At least there's never any human error ever when courses are certified 😊

There usually isn't when its done by people who know what they are doing

Well the guy that certifies it needs to avoid error and then the the course needs to be set up exactly how it was certified when race day rolls around. It certainly leaves margin for human error. BUT it's the most reliable and trustworthy method still.

By the way I've been meaning to ask you how you like the one big workout a week as opposed to two regular ones. You feel you have a preference now or waiting to see final results?

Well I'll try to be more careful next time :-)

I've essentially been doing two bigger workouts per week since TOU. I consider the LR a workout, especially the way we've been doing them. So far, so good. Mentally, its easier to only have to get "up" for a workout every 3-4 days. Plus, the sessions are longer and therefore a much better marathon stimulus. I'll continue this routine for marathon buildups, but for the HM I'll make a minor tweak and add a shorter/faster session in every 2 week cycle. Crossing that bridge next spring, though.

Wow, 2 x 10k! Looks like a really great result too, great run.

If you're anything like me, you'll shoot for 1:10, and end up at 1:09 or 1:08 anyway. Either way, it should be an awesome race.

Wow Jake. What a great workout..

I'm looking forward to seeing this CIM race. You guys are doing some smart training.

Excellent workout, Jake!

My 2 cents: for the CIM course, my opinion is that even splits is the best approach. If you believe you can break 2:18 (I believe you can), than I feel the best approach is 1:09/1:09 (minus a couple seconds, of course). Just my opinion. You'll decide to do what's best for you.