Marathon training – Week 8 – Pacing Plan

On Wednesday morning I set out for a nine mile run with seven tempo miles. It was 20C at 6am with 100% humidity. Ick. I tried to run at tempo pace (approx 8:30 min/mile) but I just couldn’t get going. Somewhere during my first mile I made the executive decision to make this a marathon pace tempo run. That means I was aiming for 9:09 min/mile and I was able to average almost exactly that over the first five miles. The pace wasn’t too bad but I wished it felt a little easier because the thought of running 26.6 of these miles seemed impossible. I’ve now had time to reflect and hope that the combination of a taper, (hopefully) cooler temperature and race day magic will make it possible. During the last two tempo miles I picked up the pace a bit because I just wanted to get the run over and get on with my day! It’s a lot to get nine miles in before work. I had to wake up in the fives!

Saturday’s long run went pretty well. I took things easy and explored some local trails. It seems that a lot of the neighbourhoods around the university have networks of walking/running trails. Some are paved and some are a really nice hard packed gravel. No matter how long I study satellite maps it’s almost impossible for me to make all the right turns. I guess I don’t really have a photographic memory! Fortunately on Tuesday morning I went for a run with a friend who showed me a great 7km loop that I was able to use part of on Saturday. The truth of the matter is that it’s almost impossible to get truly lost because eventually you’ll hit a major road and get your bearings.

We are now three weeks out from race day. During my previous two marathon training cycles I’d be starting the taper at this point but this year I’m trying out a two week taper. This is mostly due to the fact that I’m only doing an 11 week training plan and there’s not so much time to squeeze a taper into that. I think I can handle one more hard week.

21/09	-	Rest day
22/09	7.5 mi	Easy run: avg 9:57 min/mile
23/09	9.0 mi	Tempo run: 7mi @ 9:06/9:17/9:00/9:09/9:14/8:46/8:37 min
24/09	6.0 mi	Easy run: avg 10:29 min/mile
25/09	-	Rest day
26/09	16.0 mi	Long run: avg 10:39 min/mile
27/09	-	Rest day
Total	38.5 mi	YTD: 934.7 miles

Race Preparation

I have chosen a pacing plan for a “best case scenario” attempt at a sub four hour marathon. Unless a horrible heat wave hits Toronto this is how I’m going to try and pace my race but of course things could change quickly as the race develops. In order to break four hours I need to average 5:41 min/km. My goal is to run a negative split running the first half in about 2:02. So for the four sections of the course that I defined last week my goal is to run 5:50, 5:45, 5:40, 5:35 min/km, respectively. It will take discipline to run the first section that slowly since there’s a nice gradual downhill along Yonge but I think it will be worth it to not go out too hard.