No more marathons
Here's the elevation chart for my marathon in two weeks.
My goal is to average about 8:30 and am unsure what pace to hold for those two rises of about 200 feet at miles 2 and 5. I realize I can get most of the time back in the downhill portion, but don't want to expend too much extra energy that early on. Not as concerned with the bump at mile 12 - by then I'll know how things are going.
Any advice is greatly appreciated.
Boston 2014 - a 33 year journey
Lordy, I hope there are tapes.
He's a leaker!
I have no advice, but just wanted to wish you good luck!!!
Are we there, yet?
Ignore the pace and run what feels like 8:30 effort would on flat ground.
2024 Races:
03/09 - Livingston Oval Ultra 6-Hour, 22.88 miles
05/11 - D3 50K 05/25 - What the Duck 12-Hour
06/17 - 6 Days in the Dome 12-Hour.
You might want to check out this course at tazrunning.com -- the site gives you custom mile splits accounting for changes in elevation. The default finish time is 4:30 but you can change that in 'settings'. I have found it an extremely useful site in planning race strategy, though on race day I usually go (as George/wcrunner suggests) by feel. Still, it can be helpful to know 'ok, this mile split is going to be ~10-20 seconds slower than the last one, that's fine' or 'ok, this mile has a slight downhill, I need to make up roughly 5-10 seconds'.
That early in a marathon that stategy isn't going to work. 8:30 is going to feel S L O W (hopefully), no matter what. I may run with my heart rate monitor and use that, but want to make sure I'm not losing more time than what is reasonable to make back up on the down hill.
I'll check out the web site that meaghansketch listed and see what help that gives.
Wow - that's perfect. Just what I was looking for. I'll try a couple custom settings on it (move the hill effort more towards the 20 than the 10 - I suck at hills).
Thanks.