"A Hefty Hunk Of Steamin Junk"

Hey Clay, good job of getting in the miles. You are being very smart about slowly increasing your miles - 10% rule is in effect here (for maximum increase in a week). As far as your pace goes - you may need to do a bit of experimenting with that one. I would tend to err on the side of caution at this point in time - 7:30 over the marathon distance will give you a 3:15. I would tend to take about 20 seconds off that pace for your 1/2 marathon pace (7:10), and about another 20 seconds or so for you 10K pace, then another 20 seconds or so for your 5K pace. So, when all is said and done, your 5K pace should be about 1 minute/mile faster than your marathon pace. That is just running according to James W, however - take it with a grain of salt. It may be worth putting up a new topic on the discussion board to elicit other comments from more knowledgable sources . . .

Clay so here is my 2 cents on what I think your pace ranges may be based on your Strider's 1/2 perfomance fudged a bit faster since I think the wind made most everyone run slow that day.

Now one thing to keep in mind is that these paces are for FLAT courses, so if the marathon pace seems too slow just remember that at St. George with all the downhill you can expect to be more in the flat 1/2 marathon pace range (7:20-7:40)

Marathon: 7:40-8:00

1/2 Marathon: 7:20-7:40

10K: 7:00-7:20

5K: 6:45-7:00

Now as far as Easy or Recovery pace I like to thing of having 2 ranges here. In Kim and my workouts we have a Base Pace which is what we consider "Easy" on a normal day - i.e. a day when the legs are rested and not hammered from a race or hard workout. Then there is Recovery Pace which is slower than Base Pace and more what you would want to run after races and day-after hard workouts.

For you I think Base Pace is around 8:15 - 9:15 and Recovery Pace more like 9:15 - 10:30.

I may be completely up in the night and I think you should always adjust your pace for any day based on how you feel (which is what you have been doing). I think it is also good to have a good size range in the various paces so you can adjust your workouts based on how you are feeling but still be able to finish off the workout without feeling like you just need to quit if you're having an off day.

Also don't lock yourself into thinking these paces WILL be correct come October. You may find based on races and ease of workouts that you are faster than this and can start to adjust things down accordingly.

Hope this is helpful and not a bunch of hogwash.

Right know Toms paces look good. But your marathon pace should be what you would like to run the marathon in. So if you want to run a 3:20-3:30 then 7:40-8:00 pace is what you should target. But I think you want to run a 3:10 or better so you need your marathon pace to be 7:00-7:20 pace. Now my other suggestion is to get out with me, Michelle, and McKenzie and do your long runs with us. You marathon pace will get easier if you do this. The best way to get faster is to run with people who are faster than you. So we better see you! I have put together a good long run schedule and will post it in the discussion forum soon. Anyone and everyone is welcome to come

As for recovery pace easy, easy, easy. No pace is to slow. I love recovery runs.

Thanks Tom and Josse for the info. Tom those paces seem about right for me and I appreciate your hard work in my regard. Josse I do need to run with faster people but you Gals might be to fast for this tired old man!

That said I will try and hook up with you Guy's and Gal's whenever it is humanly possible. Sometimes with my schedule and 5 kids tossed in there for fun, I don't have the time that I would like to have on Saturday's

And then you add in there my Golfing schedule and tournaments, it doesn't leave me with much time at all.

But I will try and run with you guy's when I can.

Clay, Josse has some great points that you should keep in mind. She is exactly right about recovery runs not really having any slowness boundary, if it feels good and super easy then all the better. Some people think if they don't run at least a certain pace then it's not even worth going running. But this is bogus, there is great value in the very slow recovery runs, I've not only seen it in my case but there is also plenty of research out there that supports it.

Also like Josse mentioned you don't want to ever box yourself in thinking your marathon pace has to be in a certain range. For years I did this but then finally learned that with the proper training, what currently is your 5K pace can very well become your marathon pace, often in just a years time or less. I've seen it happen with both Kim and I and many other runners as well. Consistency is the big key. Running 6 days a week, getting is as many mostly slow miles that you can fit into your schedule yields huge benefits if you're patient and smart (lucky?) enough to avoid injuries.