One of the things I am unsure about as I prepare for my marathon is what pace I want to try and run during the race. There are so many factors that go into this decision and I know I won’t have an accurate answer until much closer to race day. However different runs throughout the week have me running different paces depending on how fast I predict to run the marathon on race day. It is in my best interest to have a general idea of how fast I want to run. My biggest problem now is how fast I think I should be able to run opposed to how fast I actually can run over the course of 26.2 miles.
One of the common “formulas” for calculating your potential marathon time is to double your ½ marathon time and add 10 minutes. On the New York Road Runners website they said that since the course is not fast and conditions can vary it is safer to estimate 15 minutes using the same calculation.
Using that method and taking my time from my last race, roughly 1 hour 42 minutes x 2 + 15 minutes = 3:39. That would be at an 8:21/mile and I would shave off a cool 18 minutes off of my PR. A PR is an accomplishment all its own, but by 18 minutes in the greatest marathon on earth would be unreal.
The thing I don’t really like about this calculation is, even though I should be able to run that fast, for that long, I don’t think I can. After I ran both of my marathons with my buddy Dan I told him, “I’m never doing that again.” My body ached and the last 9 miles of each race was torture.
Some factors that lead to me being so miserable was that I never ran any 20 mile runs in training and I didn’t really have any hydration/nutrition plan. This go around both of those issues will be addressed, and that makes me wonder just how I’ll do if I don’t bonk. For those non-runner types who are unfamiliar with the term "bonk", click here, but not here. The latter will just confuse you when you think about doing that during a marathon. I guess it would be cooler to justify a poor marathon time using the that definition though. "Yeah, I bonked around mile 18 and it just took longer than I expected."
 |
| "I can run the marathon faster than Matt" |
Another plus in running a sub 3:50 would be that I would beat Will Ferrell’s marathon best of 3:56:12. I’m not going to lie, I was a little upset when I found out the guy who famously jiggled down the street streaking in Old School has a faster marathon time than I do. And it’s not like he did it when he was 20. He was training for the marathon when he was filming that movie in 2003. Keeping all this in mind if I had to list my marathon goals as of right would now they would have to be…
- Beat my previous PR of 3:57:14
- Beat Will Ferrell’s PR of 3:56:12 (no streaking involved)
- Run sub 3:50
 |
And even if I don't end up beating Will Ferrell's time, I guess I can always come back to this picture down here, because at least he looks like a runner.
No comments:
Post a Comment