Another "Help a Rookie Marathoner" thread (Read 1070 times)

 It's your race so you have to pick the priorities. But, to me, it seems like a soft goal pace based on your long runs, milage and recent half marathon time. It's slower than your long run paces. You seemed to finish all of the ones that I looked at in your log in a strong manner. Same with your half marathon race. Did those runs finish confidently?

Setting a goal time that you fail to achieve while crawling in can be too scary. It's a better story though.

I am early in this running thing so take my opinion with a grain of salt. 4 hours looks reasonable. 9:50 pace is really holding back IMO based on your work.

Hydrate early and often. 

Have fun. Good luck.

It's one to build on. Good or bad

Matt,

I've seen you post on here before, but it wasn't until last night that I realized that we have mutual friends through Facebook, and I "kind of" know you....  You'll be fine for your 1st marathon.  It looks like you're well prepared.

For me, the biggest challenge was staying within myself and keeping myself from running someone else's race (faster than my preparation...).

With proper pacing and mental focus, you'll be able to do what you want to do and what you think you can do.

But, as MissPratt said, along the course of the +/- 4 hours, you're going to have to re-assess and make decisions about how you're feeling and what you should do / could do.  I *think* that it's best to reserve those mid-race-game-plan changes for the last half of the race, and until then, maintain your game plan.

A friend of mine once said... "If you realize you can't do what you set out to do, then set out to do what you can do". 

You will do it!  And, you will enjoy it!

Cheers,
Brian

Starting at 9:50 will certainly be safe.  The question is how much you want to balance enjoyment with lowering your time.  If you ran your 20-milers 9:38-9:48, there is no reason that running the race at the same pace as you practiced a 20-miler should be a problem.  If I were you and wanted to be a bit conservative, I'd start at whatever pace you did your 20-milers at and re-assess sometime after the HM point.  Certainly once you pass 20 miles, if you are still feeling good you have time to take off a couple minutes.

It is amazing to me (not that I'm saying you say it this way, Spaniel) that people do their long run faster than their anticipated marathon pace.  I guess I just don't see much point in doing your workout better than your actual race.  To me, THE RACE is where you shine; where you do your furthest and the fastest.  You (OP) had just done Half Marathon in somewhere around 8:40 per mile pace; and you had been doing 18~20-mile in training at 9:38~9:48 pace.  And you anticipate to start the marathon at 9:50?  I don't know; I found it all so very backward thinking...  When my wife ran her first marathon (I always use her as an example because I remember her paces, etc., I never remember all those details...), she was training mainly at 10~11 pace; we put the program together in such way that she'd do HER BEST at the race--in other words, we planned to PEAK on the day.  She started out at 8:15 pace; well, a bit too aggressive, and ended up running at around 9 pace average in 3:54.  As far as I'm concerned, that's what training and racing is all about.  You train to race.  If you do better in training, well, I don't really see much point of training/racing.  I know some people look at things differently; I noticed someone said something about running a half marathon on treadmill and counted that as PR.  I don't see not too many people, or organizations like BAA, would take that as official performance.  Maybe good for ego booster but perhaps not much else...

Going back to the original question; my suggestion, at this point, is to get to the start, settle in the comfortable effort, regardless of what the watch or Garmin might tell you, and stick with it as long as you can and see what happens.  Trying to adjust the pace, according to the watch, not your feeling, can be disastrous.  You should not force yourself to slow down OR pick up and pace.  Feel the force (Luke). 

I totally agree with you Nobby.  However given the crumbs of information we get from such threads (or even logs for that matter) it's impossible to know how hard the OP was running during those 20-mile training runs....it would be dangerous IMHO to assume that rookie marathoners are running them at an effort level a coach may desire.  I know some people try to push them too much, so you can't just assume a marathon pace a lot faster.  It's just hard to throw one out there (I don't THINK I frequently give people hard numbers?  I'm an expert on few people's training history).  There was also the voiced desire to, above all, enjoy the experience, so it becomes a personal decision on how hard to push.  While I "enjoyed" the faster marathons I ran, I can't say they weren't miserable experiences in-the-moment towards the end.

 

Like I said previously, I'd consider whatever the 20-mile training run pace was to be the top and and look downward from there for the right answer. 

Yeah, I was worried you may take it directed at you which was not my intention--I guess I was too lazy to go all the way at the top and look for the appropriate sentence to quote to bring my point.  

And, while your last comment is so true, my point actually is to say that it is a wrong approach to begin with when you have to do so (consider whatever the training pace and look downward for the actual marathon).  There IS something fundamentally wrong about this approach.

And your comment about "enjoyment"; well, you should know, most usually, the one you DIDN'T enjoy is the one that must have taken you much longer than the time you wanted to run that marathon in, right? ;o)  

Question:  I see some comments, questioning the wisdom of doing workouts faster  than your actual race.  I am assuming you are only referring to long runs and not speedwork or tempo runs, correct?

Maybe it's just me --- but if I tried to run a half or a full at a faster pace then I had ever trained at ... that would be a recipe for disaster. I dont think it's realistic to expect your legs to go faster all of a sudden when you've never asked them to do that before. 

I do my longer runs considerably slower than my Goal Race Pace, but my coach ensures we have several runs each week that incorporates good chunks of time at either Goal Race Pace or Tempo (plus Intervals in speed workouts).    This ensures my body knows what it feels like at that pace.  You have to be train your body to be comfortable feeling uncomfortable.

It sounds like your goal is to simply finish the marathon and enjoy it, right? If that's the case ... if I were you .... i would ignore all the comments about how fast or slow you should be running, and just do it at a nice easy comfortable pace that you are sure you can sustain. If your goal were to finish in a certain time, that's a different story.

When I did my first half, I deliberately chose a very conservatvie pace plan ... I wanted to enjoy it, and I did. Since then, I've done another half and am training for my 3rd -- in both of these, I have very specific time goals, so my training is completely different and incorporates both slow long runs and plenty of tempo and speedwork as well. Like you, I am going to attempt my first full marathon in the fall and my only goal will be to finish. My training will then be primarily about getting miles under my belt, and not about my pace.

Why is the long run always classified as "slow"?  That doesn't make much sense to me.  What is "slow"?  How do I know I ran "slow"?

 

Long runs should be "steady", meaning you hold a consistent level of effort over the run.  What that effort level actually is will depend on the purpose of the workout, the level of fitness of the individual, and the overall goal of the training.

I'm not sure I agree with "consistent level of effort" for long runs. Marathons are best run are more or less a constant pace. But that's very far from a constant subjective effort - it's easy at the beginning and gets progressively harder.

I think it's good to simulate that kind of thing in some of your long runs - so start nice and easy and push the pace later on.

Get to the start, settle in the comfortable effort, regardless of what the watch or Garmin might tell you, and stick with it as long as you can and see what happens.  Trying to adjust the pace, according to the watch, not your feeling, can be disastrous.  You should not force yourself to slow down OR pick up and pace.  Feel the force (Luke). 

Well said!