Boston analysis You can't bank time...

You can’t bank time...

Too few know it, too few show it, too few do it.

Too many rookie mistakes if you think, “I’ll just

run 5 seconds faster per mile for the first half

and then I will have 75 seconds in the bank when

I have to tackle the hills of Newton.”

It doesn’t work that way, you can’t bank time

on a course like the Boston Marathon and the

heat of yesterday should have had people running

more conservatively.

Below...some good examples,

followed by some bad examples of pacing.

7 Hailu Negussie, 25 1:06:31/2:11:45 1st

3 Wilson Onsare, 28 1:06:32/2:12:21 2nd

23 Benson Cherono, 20 1:06:32/2:12:48 3rd

F1 Catherine Ndereba, 32 1:13:31/2:25:13 1st

62 Eric Post, 26 1:12:58/2:25:22 25th

1412 Nathan Jones, 27 1:19:27/2:38:30 80th

F115 Simonetta Piergentili, 40 1:26:27/2:51:35 19th

Let’s celebrate that 3 American Men finished in the

Top 11, but let’s not get carried away!

16 Ryan Shay, 25 1:06:32/2:18:17 11th

Just because you can run 1:06 for the half doesn’t mean

you should. Wouldn’t a 1:09 first half have been smarter?

F5 Nuta Olaru, 34 1:12:11/2:37:37 10th

1007 Henry Ongechi, 33 1:10:01/2:40:14 98th

F21 Kim Fitchen-Young, 36 1:17:44/2:56:40 28th

xcrunningcoach@yahoo.com wrote:

Just because you can run 1:06 for the half doesn’t mean

you should. Wouldn’t a 1:09 first half have been smarter?

He was racing his opponents. When you do that, you take chances. Kudos to him for giving it his best shot.

xcrunningcoach@yahoo.com wrote:

You can’t bank time...

Too few know it, too few show it, too few do it.

Everyone knows it, they just get carried away. I've never read, or heard from anyone, that banking time is a good idea. Everyone always says even pace, or "use the early miles as your warm-up."

Shay is a bad example, he was running for place.

What does "too few show it" mean anyway? I can't figure that part out?

xcrunningcoach@yahoo.com wrote:

16 Ryan Shay, 25 1:06:32/2:18:17 11th

Just because you can run 1:06 for the half doesn’t mean

you should. Wouldn’t a 1:09 first half have been smarter?

No. He wasn't planning to run 2:18. Hindsight is 20/20 and you weren't there, so you don't know how shitty the consitions were. Please quit posing as a coach.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Maybe Shay thought he could run 2:13. If he had gone out in 1:09 I doubt he could have come back in 1:04 to get that 2:13.

You make a decision during a race and go with it. It was his choice as to how he ran. Maybe next time he will go out in 1:06 and come back in 1:04. You don't know until you try.

He was racing his opponents. When you do that, you take chances. Kudos to him for giving it his best shot.[/quote]

No problem with that for those up front but take a look down the list. It's very ugly for most of those under and over 3 hours.

Even on a hot day, they still get sucked out...

I think the thread starter makes an excellent point. How many times are you watching a set of elites whether M or F and a couple of people go out gung ho on a pace you know is destined to doom them and sure enough it does. What veteran marathoners learn is to let them go. It takes more confidence in yourself to know that they are running away now, but that they will come back.

The only cavaet to this is the length of a marathon makes it a more complicated race to dictate a pace then say a 5k, let alone a shorter race. Temperature and other environmental day to day minute to mintue variables can make a difference of minutes even for elites let alone the rest of the pack. I'm sure that makes it hard for even the veterans to know when they start the race what they might be shooting for that day.

Para

If you go out at 1:09, the Kenyans will NOT be "coming back" to you under any circumstance. If you want to beat them, you have to try to race them. Period.

That means trying for a pace that will keep you with them. Shay was aiming for the 2:12 range (or whatever it was in that neighborhood that would put him in the top 5). So he went for that pace.

but then again, there's always that slight chance you can pull off what Trent Briney did.

no one on here would have said it was a good idea for him to be hanging around up front. but lo and behold. he wouldn't have gotten 4th at the ots if he'd done what everyone would have said he should have done.

Its like the lottery. You gotta be in it to win it.

Actually if you look at the way Ndereba ran, she went out conservatively and then proceeded to pick off the other who went out faster than they were able to handle for the conditions. No professional runner should be unaware that they can't just roll down the hills and think it won't mess their legs up for later on in the race. Downhill running is a whole other monster that the majority of runners aren't working on on a regular basis. History shows that a smart race plan that you dictate, not your oponents dictating your race, usually works best in Boston.