Clear skies, temperatures in the high 40's, no moon. I've been thinking about Paul's post from yesterday where he reported on his marathon pacing. I tried the same thing this morning and concluded that the mitigating factors (e.g. second run of the day, lingering injuries, running during the hotter part of the day) he listed definitely affected his pace, since I know he's faster than I am. My results from this morning looked like this:
| Mile |
Pace |
Grade |
Comments |
| 1 |
7:59 |
1% up |
Felt relaxed |
| 2 |
7:36 |
1% up to 1% down |
Felt relaxed |
| 3 |
7:25 |
1% down |
Mostly relaxed |
| 4 |
7:26 |
flat to 1% up |
Threshold pace |
Over all, I felt good about the effort. I noticed that on the downhill section (mile 3) that I gradually sped up as I was feeling good. By the time I reached the end, I was breathing a little harder than I had the first two miles. For the final mile, I spotted a couple of runners about a hundred yards ahead and since I was feeling good, I decided to see if I could catch them before they made their turn south. I didn't feel like I was pushing it that hard, but I kept up the pace for the rest of the mile, which felt hard when heading up the trail towards home. One of the ladies was Jill W. I'm not sure who the other one was as it was still fairly dark.
Today gave me a pretty good feel for where I am fitness-wise and also how to gauge when I'm running at a good effort (even breathing, no sharp exhales, no stress). I'm sure the pace that will feel easy the first part of the marathon, will feel like an all out effort the last six miles but hopefully I can hang in there and get past the usual calf cramping and bowel discomfort. | 