In Berlin I was a bit overoptimistic, as I had suspected even beforehand, to be honest, and I got slower with almost each mile and the second half wasn't the greatest fun I've ever had. 6 weeks later I know my legs are starting to improve again but make no mistake, they are a long way away from being in proper marathon shape. I'm pretty sure the last few miles are going to suck once more, and this time I have the added problem of a hillier route. My legs are starting to falter every time the road is pointing upwards, so that's probably not ideal. I can work around the worst of it by taking it easy on the climbs, ignoring the scores of runners going past me and just slowly making my way to the top, but it's not going to be pretty in the second half.
I did a test run this morning (Sunday) to see how 8-minute pace feels like, and the answer was quite obvious, namely much too fast. I managed to hold it for the planned 7 miles (actually there was a slower mile in there which I had completely missed and only noticed afterwards when I looked at it on Strava) but there was no way I would have been able to hold it for almost 20 more miles, so a 3:30 marathon is out of the question.
Admittedly, I did a couple of intervals on Saturday on the promenade, which obviously had an effect on the legs today but still - I might try and stay somewhere close to 3:40 pace and see how I get on. Despite the hillier nature of the course it should be a bit faster than Berlin, thanks to slightly better legs, but it's almost certainly going to be my second slowest Dublin marathon, only propped up my my very first marathon here, all of 14 years ago.
Oh, and yesterday's intervals were actually quite interesting. I did not time them and I did not pace myself off the watch; in fact, I didn't even know how long they were, just one length of the Bray promenade, which turned out to be just over one k, and there happened to be a Strava segment, which is how I got my numbers afterwards. All I did was run fast but fully controlled, twice, with a slow jog back as recovery. I was actually surprised by the numbers, I expected them to be a lot slower, and I was even more surprised that the second one had been faster than the first one. Shows how wrong perception can be! With the marathon next week I left it at only 2 repeats, but I think I might use that stretch in future as my workout stage. It's obviously completely flat, there are not a lot of people there during teh times when I do my runs, and it's only the wind that can be a factor on some days, though yesterday's it was almost completely still.
But let's get that marathon out of the way first, plus the recovery period that will follow it.
- 17 Oct
- 10.2 miles, 1:32:58, 9:06 pace, HR 139
- 18 Oct
- 6.72 miles, 1:01:12, 9:06 pace, HR 135
- 19 Oct
- 10.2 miles, 1:28:40, 8:41 pace, HR 145
- 20 Oct
- 7.8 miles, 1:06:04, 8:28 pace, HR 144
- 2 x 1k @ 6:26, 6:16 pace
- 21 Oct
- 10 miles, 1:24:26, 8:26 pace, HR 148
3:40 sounds incredibly fast to me! I hope to be that fast one day! But I know you're competing against yourself and what you know you used to be able to do. . .so keep at it! You just might surprise yourself. Try to think positively about what you can do and focus more on that. Or do what I do when I have a disappointing run or event. I remind myself that I have to suffer thru the bad days in order to get to the good days. Puts it in perspective. It's all part of the growth process.
ReplyDeleteGood luck on the Marathon and I look forward to reading how it went!
Hi Thomas,
ReplyDeletefrom my limited experience of marathon running (1!), but having been a runner for many years, recovery can be a tricky phase to master. Nobody knows your body better than you but surely running 2 marathons so close together is somewhat fool hardy is it not? Conventional marathon wisdom is two marathons a year separated by a significant recovery period. Given the extra level of madness that ultra runners are afflicted with may be impacting your thinking (joke!). You don't want to be in a position at lunchtime on Monday with the body (and mind) in bits and possibly injured. As I said already nobody knows your body better than you.
Thanks David, but the "wisdom" of 2 marathons a year has passed me by. I have run up to 18 marathons/ultras a year in the past and managed to recover, so 2 marathons 6 weeks apart don't sound like a major issue to me anymore. It would be different if I had been racing them (tried that too, didn't work) but just completing a marathon isn't the same level of stress.
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