Six weeks out: need pacing advice for first marathon

Your long run and half time to me indicate under 2:50. However, before you get too excited I don't see enough marathon specific work. 10k tempo is fine as are 400 repeats but they aren't specific to run a good marathon. Therefore, you should target 253-255 pace for the first half, all the way to 20 miles. If you are right, you will destroy the last 10k and come away feeling great. If everyone else is right, you won't crash too badly.

to Young Master: Thanks for the thoughtful reply. And to anyone above, I think this next snippet might be relevant:

Although you viewed 3:00 with 1:25/1:35 as wasting six months, you were at least in POSITION to run 2:50. I, of course, have no idea where your fitness was at the time. But suppose I hit the half mark at, say, 1:27:30. I'm pretty damn sure I can't rip at 1:22:30 off that, even if I'm feeling phenomenal. I'm just too far back. Given my fitness, the fact that I still do have a few weeks of key training, the feedback above, etc., it didn't / doesn't seem insane to target that time.

But as a larger point, I'd view coming in 5-10 minutes "slow" as a wasted six months of work. Maybe this is the mental part of the marathon that I just haven't grasped yet.

TO ALL: have you struggled with this mental element? Tips?

to thoner pace helper: the 400s aren't really repeats - the workout is designed to make me feel comfortable running 6:22 pace. Note that it's just a little mini-surge and then you run the rest of the miles at 6:22. As per all the discussion above, that's even faster than my MP, but it was designed to be MP work. Whoops.

Also, last week was 10k tempo, but my standard weekly tempo varies from 10K to 9mi. I was starting from ZERO miles per week in October, so I just couldn't get to big mileage in time without risking serious injury. C'est la vie.

Go out at maybe 6:25-6:30/mile pace, see how it feels. Seems like a sub-2:50 should be possible, but first marathons can be unpredictable.

My prediction is that you'll go out in 1:20, "feeling good", start to hurt at 18 miles, start to crawl at 22/24 and finish 2:50.

18-26 is going to be a guessing game. No matter how fast or slow you get there it's going to suck and suck a lot.

My suggestion is try to make the first 13 miles as easy as possible....for you 1:22-25 looks good. Hang in there, keep hanging in there, don't push until 20-22. Resist the temptation to push too soon.

Alan

Gotcha. I say plan for a negative split then that gets you under 2:50. Run 1:25:30 to 1:26 for the first half. I did that one time and ran a 2 minute negative split and was happy with it. Maybe I left a minute or two out on the course but you never know.

to runningart2004: I love the confidence, man! But in all seriousness, there is a zero percent chance I go out faster than 1:24 (and even 1:24 I would view as a slight mistake). While it's my first marathon, I've got years of running under me (from years ago) and know how to run a specific pace. Even with the adrenaline, I'll have a watch!

To all: at the moment, the consensus view seems to be that 2:50 is the "if everything goes right" goal, with a few of you viewing that as too optimistic. If any of you have **strong** opinions that this is bad (either direction) chime in.

If not, I'll update you all after the long run this weekend and we'll see if 10+10 MP feels alright.

EugeneMarathon_Pacing wrote:

Not meaning to nitpick at ALL, so hopefully this comes across as curious (which I am): who advocates this approach to long runs? I mean, it makes sense by a logical standard, but it's not present in many of the leading training programs e.g. Pfitz. Or at least, I don't think it is...

Again, just curious and thank you again for the thoughtful replies!

No problem. I honestly don't know if anyone advocates this. I don't really follow any one coach. I would guess if you look at their training, many would have a LR that is similar to this. It can be done in a 22-24 miler which a fair amount of training programs call for.

I decided this by talking to a guy I knew training for Boston he was low mileage and just ran fast all the time. He wanted to run 2:12 in Boston and we were talking about his long runs and his longest LR was 21 miles around 5:05 pace (~1:45 total) basically race pace. I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that the first time in his life he would run over 2 hr was on race day. Especially for a pro runner like that with a coach. They just figured if he could do that in practice, on race day with a taper he could hold it. He ran 2:22 and completely blew up the last 5 miles.

This ties into the first marathon thing. You can't really replicate a marathon, so I remain cautious about your first effort.

My first marathon was at age 36. Times going in were close to yours: mid 35 for 10k, 1:21 on a hilly half. But my mileage was considerably higher, as I had maintained a consistent 70mpw throughout most of the cycle and peaked at 80.

I went through the half in 1:25 flat, then ran a slight negative split, and ended up with a 2:49. Considering it was my first, and under horrible conditions, I was pretty happy with it.

EugeneMarathon_Pacing wrote:

to runningart2004: I love the confidence, man! But in all seriousness, there is a zero percent chance I go out faster than 1:24 (and even 1:24 I would view as a slight mistake). While it's my first marathon, I've got years of running under me (from years ago) and know how to run a specific pace. Even with the adrenaline, I'll have a watch!

To all: at the moment, the consensus view seems to be that 2:50 is the "if everything goes right" goal, with a few of you viewing that as too optimistic. If any of you have **strong** opinions that this is bad (either direction) chime in.

If not, I'll update you all after the long run this weekend and we'll see if 10+10 MP feels alright.

If you split 1:25 you won't break 2:50.

Equal or negative splits is pie in the sky for marathons, especially first marathons. You want equal effort which allows for a late race slow down.

1:22-1:25 first half. 1:25-1:28 second half.

I've run about 10 marathons, everything from 2:32 to 2:48 to DNF. Ran upwards of 140 miles a week, ran 22-30 mile long runs. You will still slow down at the end

Alan

I wouldn't underestimate the mental aspect -- if you start to get passed at mile ~18, it's pretty shattering, whereas passing people there gives you a boost that can drive you to perform better than expected.

One question is, really, what are your goals and what is your risk tolerance? It seems like you have pretty clear definitions of success and failure, so lay them out. If you're in shape that 30% of the time you can run 2:45, but if you go out at that pace, there's a 70% chance you blow up and hobble in at 2:55, is that "worth it" more than getting a 75% chance of running sub-2:50? Be honest with yourself on how much you want to risk -- we can't help with that.

I find a good strategy to help pacing and mentality is this: Set up a goal pace for the first 16.2, then reset your watch and race the last 10 miles as a 10 mile race (taking into account what you've already run).

If you want to break 2:50, I'd say: Go out at 6:25 pace for the first 16.2 (if your watch says 6:25, it's probably actually 6:28 or so, given that it's really, really hard to run perfect tangents. I find 1.01 miles to the mile is just about right (and, actually set the "lap" on my watch to 1.01), then assess.

And good luck

To runningart: I'd be interested on others' thoughts about negative splitting (or very slight positive splitting). I take the point that it's obviously hard, but the claim that you want equal effort across the halves just seems, frankly, wrong. I would never do equal effort in a HM, for instance: the second half is simply harder.

I'm open to the idea, though, and I'm interested in hearing a little more justification for the idea and others' thoughts.

to CZ: This was a really interesting reply that made me think about the problem in a different way. Thanks.

I'd suppose that I am not looking for a 25% thing - I recognize that in some "Stars Align" scenarios I could maybe do 2:45, but I'd much rather try to optimize so that it's something like 1% under 2:45, 74% under 2:50, 15% 2:50-2:55, 10% 2:55-3:00. (I mean, stuff DOES happen, and there's nothing that I can do about the small chance that I get the flu or something). Hopefully that helps others and people can chime in if they think that risk profile is not attainable given my current fitness.

What's the logic behind the 16.2 advice? Just that you have 10 to go?

Since it is your first marathon you want to have a positive first time experience. Just shoot for a sub 3 hour time. Run with the sub 3 hour pace group for the first 20 miles and then if you feel really good race the last 10K. A LOT can happen in a marathon so I would err on the side of caution with your first one. Your body will feel a new kind of fatigue that you cannot replicate in training so be conservative for your first one. Also, I would slow down tour recovery days. My 1/2 marathon PR is 1:14 and I never did my recover runs as fast as you do. 7:30-8:00 (yes 8:00) pace is fine for you. Good luck and let us know how you did.

Well, I negative splitted in my first, but as I mentioned, my weekly volume was quite a bit higher than yours. As far as how it felt, when I hit the half, it felt very easy, like I was doing a warmup jog. By 18, I was still feeling good, but definitely tired. 23-finish was a very hard effort. It didn't help that I had to pass several hundred half marathon walkers.

Just ran my first marathon at LA - Im older at 41 but was in similar shape as you, half pr 1:20 run during training, no taper. ave bout 60m/wk. I went out pretty evenly at 6:25 - 6:30 pace, felt great but had explosive diarrhea around mile 15, had to stop 4 times, but was still feeling ok, around mile 20 cramping in both calves and hamstrings joined my cramping intestines, felt like i was going to die and hobbled the last 6 to finish in 3:02. Point being that racing a marathon is different from any other race or workout you can imagine - and you need luck as well as preparation to run as fast as you are capable. I may have blown up no matter what pace i went out at, maybe wasnt my day but if i had aimed just to break three maybe would have had better results.I think its possible for you to go 2:45 - 2:50 but if you go for it you are opening yourself up for the possibility of a big blow up and maybe even a DNF. Its your first time - the marathon is no joke

EugeneMarathon_Pacing wrote:

To runningart: I'd be interested on others' thoughts about negative splitting (or very slight positive splitting).

I've negative split 3 of 5.

#1: 2:57 (1:30/1:27)

#2: 2:48 (1:25/1:23)

#3: 2:55 (1:25/1:30) Boston. Not many people negative split here.

#4 3:03 (1:27/1:36) 80 degree heat

#5 2:53 (1:26:32/1:26:28)

It's been my experience to not be afraid to plan for a negative split. Safer, especially for a first marathon. Even when I blew up in the heat, I was basically jogging it in. It wasn't a death march/walk.

My best races have always been when the first 10 miles felt easy, like I was on a training run. I don't think even effort would work with me.

There's a lot of the same comment: "You can't simulate a marathon in training." I feel compelled to reply to this because it seems wrong. For example, one *could* just run 24 or 25 hard. There's no magic in the last 2 miles. My guess is that 22 hard is probably sufficiently close to simulating it. Now, we don't do that because the recovery is insane. But doing 10 easy + 10 MP (aka, what I'm doing this Saturday) cannot be too far from a similar sensation. Is it easier? Of course! But I'm trying to understand the structure of the argument that "it's different than anything you can ever imagine."

[In some ways this feels to me the way parents talk about having kids. Is it different? Sure! But I could just babysit a bunch or become a full-time nanny and the "training" gets pretty close to the real-deal.]

Here's a question to the group:

How would your advice change if this was my fifth marathon? My 20th? Imagine the training was exactly the same.

To thoner: First, thanks for posting your splits. And your intuition seems to match the data out there saying that approximately even or slightly negative splits are optimal. Given that running the first half aiming for even pace will feel like walking, I share your intuition that even effort seems odd.

Perhaps the advice was designed / tailored for me specifically, given my relatively low mileage? (Though, let's be real, I'm not running THAT low, LRC ridiculousness aside).

Others?

I will take a stab at this.

I understand what you are saying that to an extent we can simulate the marathon and that is true. There are workouts like the ones you have listed that are good tests that a lot of people use. But there is a difference between 22 hard and 26.2. It doesn't seem like much, but its larger than you'd think. Also there is a smaller room for error. Maybe you don't take enough water, or too much water, or don't eat right. All these things can have a huge impact on the result. People have commented here about walking it in or hobbling in, running 2-3 min slower per mile the last few miles. these things happen.

If it was your 5th or 20th marathon I would say you have been through this before you should know how to pace yourself.

If it was your 2nd or 3rd, I would suggest trying to run the last 10 miles of the 20 miler around 6:20s and see how you do. On race day I would say you are in sub 2:50 shape and if you want to go for it start with 6:25s.

EugeneMarathon_Pacing wrote:

There's a lot of the same comment: "You can't simulate a marathon in training." I feel compelled to reply to this because it seems wrong.

You know what? It's not.

Plenty of people with PLENTY of experience have posted very good (similar) strategies and you are fighting all of them.

Ignore them at your peril.