Tuesday, April 21, 2009

taking it easy

Today was just over 6 miles at a pace of 7:45 a mile. It felt really good. I just hope the first 6 miles of the marathon go as easy as today's run. There are only 11 days left until the marathon and I am planning to do mostly race pace running, or slower. I plan to get a decent amount of miles in over the next 5 or 6 days and then start cutting back.

I have started thinking a lot about my plan for the big day and the main thing I think I need to focus on is controlling the pace early on. No matter how good I am feeling early on I want to make sure that I do not run faster then 8 min miles for the first 16 to 18 miles. If I am still feeling good at that point we will just see what happens. I know I have no chance at breaking 3:30 if I have to walk at all so I have to make sure I go at a pace I can maintain. I also will not break 3:30 if I start out to slow, but I know that is not a problem. No matter how hard I try I can't seem to run any slower then 8 min miles. Tomorrow morning I am going to practice running slow for 9 miles, we will see how it goes.

2 comments:

Adam said...

I know that you will do a wonderful job.

Lindsay said...

7:45 does not equal easy, sorry! more like tempo for me :) nice job though. i hope one day i can run effortlessly in the 7's (or 6's, or 5's would be ok too!) lol.

it is definitely important to not waste energy at the start, but of course it's hard to not do! good idea to start beating it in your brain now; reflect over your training log to remind yourself that you've put in the work and that the plan will pay off.

enjoy the next few days easy in the taper. now is not the time to push it - you've been training hard for weeks and months, rest your legs and it'll all come together!