Dear LetsRun community,
I've been reading this forum for quite some time and now I would like to ask you a rookie question. I am going to run my first Boston marathon in 3 weeks and I have still yet to figure out the exact pace I could probably run. I might have an idea, but I find even a minute difference in the finishing time to be considerable.
1. Background
I am a 29 years old male, almost 6'2'', 163 pounds.
I don't have any background in running and my BQ time is 2h59m17s. I was into cycling and, one year ago, I ran the marathon as a challenge, to see if I can qualify to Boston. Before that marathon, I ran 10 miles a week or less for the last 8 weeks, so I wasn't really training for a marathon.
I am not sure if it matters, but I used to do 200 miles road bike rides and I even biked from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 27 hours straight (total distance 470 miles, by the beautiful coast).
I don't have a coach training me and, sadly, I mostly train by myself.
2. PRs and MPW
A year ago I started to focus more on running and these are my PRs so far:
1k 3:04 (track)
1 mile 5:26 (track)
5k 17:34
10k 37:46 (I have never raced a 10K and I got this time as part of a half marathon race)
Half-Marathon 1:20:51
Marathon 2:59:17
For the last 10 weeks, I have been running between 60 and 70 miles per week. Last week, I did 3 runs of around 90 minutes each and I felt pretty good. A half marathon in 1h30m flat (Monday), 11.3 miles on the beach @ 8m00s per mile (Saturday), half marathon in 1h23m40s (Sunday).
3. McMillan running
Various online sources, including McMillan running, estimate that I could run the marathon in 2h50m, based on the PRs above. I have never run 2h50m and I don't know how it feels, but isn't it relatively slow compared to the 2h59m17s I got with very little training?
What are your suggestions? Would it be a bad idea if I run the first half in 1h22m30s and hope that I can keep it up in the other half? Of course, I'd slow down if the feelings are not good.