How to find my pace time (Read 1926 times)

I just have a general question. I have not really been a long distance runner, but am gearing up to run my first marathon in August and am really excited about it. I am now up to 4 miles and am finding it pretty easy to run. My question is, when do I find my pace time and how do I find it, and how do I keep it throughout the whole 26.2 miles? Right now my mile is 10:38. Thanks for any input anyone can give me....

You. Must. Be. Kidding.

it is such a tough question to answer. I am not going to tell you that you cannot do it but others will. Look within their criticism for the information. 26.2 is a long way. To put it in perspective... you have to over come the following.. running 1 hour running 1.5 hours running 2 hours running 2.5 running 3 hours running 3.5 hours running 4 hours each of those hurdles requires time for your body to adjust to. To strengthen to. For you to mentally adjust to. In other words, you will have to attain each of those levels. Each will be a strech when you reach it then it will take time to own it. For your body to withstand it. When you finish 4 miles do you feel like you could do it again? By the time you own running for 2 hours then running 4 miles will seam like a long warm up. At some point running 6 miles is a short run. Most folks say you shouldn't attempt a marathon until: * You have been running consistently for a year. *You have a base weekly milage of x where x depends on who you talk to but somewhere in the 30-40 miles of base before you begin your training for the marathon seams to be about the minumum. Most training programs are somewhere around 16-30 weeks. It is a strech to think your body will be able to go from not running to running for 5 hours and so people will look at that and say I wouldn't do that and so you shouldn't. I say if you want to do it know what your are doing and then go for it! Alright so how to pick your pace... run slow now. Keep running slow. Build miles. In the late spring run a 10k, 15k, or a half marathon. That will give you an idea of pace or at least a ball park. Getting a pace and keeping it is just a matter of practice and building endurance. Being your mile time is where it is I would suspect that you are trying to finish just to finish not to "RACE" if that is the case don't worry about how fast you run... just run and enjoy it... go slow so you can talk with someone comfortably... then plan on going a bit slower yet when you run the marathon... I'm no expert by any means I thought I would share my 2 cents... good luck and I wish you the best!

Some. people. are. really. negative. and. bitchy. Just ignore them and run your own way. I think jsobos advice is sound.

There are running calculators out there that will tell you, based on other race distances, what your predicted finish times will be for longer distances. They will also tell you that the closer your races are to the actual distance you're asking them to project, the more accurate your results will be. In other words, if you ask for a projected finish time for the 26.2 right now, it will give you one, and you can calculate your pace times from there. However, you should understand that your projected finish will get more accurate as you run longer distances and input your finish times for those distances. Even then, they're just predictions--they can't account for weather, wind, bad runs . . . The best thing to do is to just feel it out. Based on my 10k race and other long runs in early training before my half, I thought that my pace for that race (my longest distance so far) should be about 10mm. But as my training progressed, I was surprised to discover that I could be comfortably and consistently faster than that. But hey, that's the point of training. As I dream about my first marathon (which I won't do for at least another year), I will have to see how that pace translates as I get past mile 14--my longest training run so far. Congratulations on having such an ambitious goal!

I just have a general question. I have not really been a long distance runner, but am gearing up to run my first marathon in August and am really excited about it. I am now up to 4 miles and am finding it pretty easy to run. My question is, when do I find my pace time and how do I find it, and how do I keep it throughout the whole 26.2 miles? Right now my mile is 10:38. Thanks for any input anyone can give me....

Calijem08, I am fairly new to running, so take this with a grain of salt. You might want to consider a heart rate monitor. I own one and have been using it in my running in a very simplistic way: For my speed workouts I try to hit 80-90% of my max HR (220-age) and stay there. For my tempo runs I try to hit 70% and stay there and for my long runs (depending how long), I try to get to about 60% and stay there. Then, whatever your pace is, your pace is. I'd welcome any criticism of this approach.

Calijem08, If I've read your question correctly, it sounds like you're asking something along the lines of "...how do I figure out my planned marathon pace..". The answer to this most often comes from learning and knowing your pace over various distances -- both in training runs and in some races. As you add distance to your training runs, you'll start to learn your pace for 5, 10 miles and longer. Some folks do this with race times, others just keep good track (aka 'logs') and note their performance, then there are the ocd leaning folks...we wont go there, but you're surrounded by them here. There is a progression from setting out to run the distance (ie, "today I am going to run 10 miles at whatever time it takes me to go 10 miles.."), to how your run the distance ("now that I know I can run 10 miles nonstop, today I am going to run 10 miles at a medium hard pace"), to setting goals ("today I am going to run the 10 miles at MM:SS minutes per mile average"). At the end of some version of this progression of steps, you know what pace you're capable of and can start planning on pace goals. You'll get lots of advise here about your marathon plan, so hope you've got some good heat-resistant underwear, but remember that there are those that methodically plan and some just do it -- to each his own. There's pros and cons for each approach.

I suggest you run gently for several miles--find a good uphill--run it it hard--jog back down then run up it as hard as you can--if you see white spots and gag when you finish--note your heart rate.

Sounds fun Nick! I think mine would be 0, and this would be the EKG from the test /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\___________________________