Are we there, yet?
Copied from my response on the RW Beginners Forum:
Starting to hurt is rather subjective. The difference can be quite a lot if you aren't use to hurting at least once in a while in training. I think of that level as the point at which I'd like to stop running and wish the damn race was over. That doesn't occur until somewhere in the final third of most races. I can recall only once when that happened by the halfway point. Despite that I ran a negative split and it easily ranks among the top 5, possibly top 3 races I've ever run - and I've run almost 900 races.
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.
I don't pretend to have anything in common with the elites. In races, I do the best I can, the way I feel like doing it. That is what I like about running, it's mine to do whatever I want with.
PRs: Boston Marathon, 3:27, April 15th 2013
Cornwall Half-Marathon, 1:35, April 27th 2013
18 marathons, 18 BQs since 2010
Unless extremely ambitious or race-ready fit you're not approaching MAX effort in a marathon. I believe there are MANY more glorifed long run efforts than true race efforts as the goal for most - in the marathon - is simply to cover the distance, not race the distance. Truth be told very few runners really want to race a marathon.
My previous post was definitely an outlier of my 20 completed marathons. The majority of my races the effort the 1st 10k was stupid easy, and in my PB race it carried through to about the 15 mile mark. But that too was an exception. Most of the races things went from easy to "feeling it" around mile 15, with mile 18 finding myself having to increase the effort to maintain pace. By mile 20 my stride began to falter but recognizing this I would prepare myself mentally * and usually picked up the pace for the next couple of miles. Mile 25 you were comforted knowing you only had one mile left but miles 23-24 were the worst - driving toward a finishline you could not see.
* When I reached the 20 mile mark in my long runs I would speak a phrase to remind me what I would encounter at that point of the marathon. And repeat it in the race - the mind instructing the body to do something it otherwise would not. The last 10k is really about smacking the crap out of the little voices telling you to slow down.
Youth Has No Age. ~ Picasso / 1st road race: Charleston Distance Run 15 Miler - 1974 / profile
I've never started a marathon at a pace that I felt was "stupid easy". Never. I always started at a pace that in theory I thought I "should" be able to hold for no more than 26.2 miles. But it was not an easy pace. It felt more like an average effort, or an easy hard effort. But in reality, around mile 16, I'd start wondering "what was I thinking? That pace was too fast for me..." Then I'd slowly start fading. I think it is more than a physical fade, it's a mental one. I've also done a crap ton of hot marathons, so fading in the second half was inevitable and vey much so physical. On a few very rare occasions I was able to maintain pace until the end and couldn't have run an extra step after crossing the finish line. If that's not giving all I've got, then I don't know what is...