Marathon pacing advice
8 watchers
21 Apr
7:23pm, 21 Apr 2024
490 posts
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SilentTim
First post in a looong time!! After not having done a mara for a while, I've got the bug again and starting to think about booking one this year. I've done three before, but I've never accomplished my goals. All of my shorter distance times say I should be able to do a sub-4, but when it comes to marathons I just crumble around mile 15 and end up walking and finishing >4:20. I feel like part of it is because I slow myself down to run 9:00 min / miles, so end up spending longer on my feet. When I last did a marathon, I did 9:00 for the first 15 miles, then ended up run / walking the rest, finishing in 4:37. Part of me is wondering whether I should just try and run it at my natural pace (somewhere between 8:20 - 8:30) and see what happens, but at the same time, I know pacing is really important and feel like it might be a bit of a false economy. Just after some thoughts from other people really |
21 Apr
7:33pm, 21 Apr 2024
3,151 posts
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Muttley
I haven't done a marathon for several years but if I were to do one now, getting a bit long in the tooth, I would experiment with run-walk. That is, run-walk from the beginning. A bit like taking on fluids or nutrition -- you need to do it before you feel the need to. For example, according to this 'ere calculator if you ran 5 minutes and then walked 1 minute throughout, you'd come in at 4 hours: mypacecalculator.com |
21 Apr
8:17pm, 21 Apr 2024
237 posts
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Charlesvdw
Running faster to prevent bonking is a very unorthodox idea.
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21 Apr
8:48pm, 21 Apr 2024
68,667 posts
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Velociraptor
When you've done marathons before, SilentTim, what pace have you done your long training runs at? And what weekly mileage have you done in preparation?
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21 Apr
8:53pm, 21 Apr 2024
68,668 posts
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Velociraptor
From your racing history, in 2012 your half marathon time suggests that you might have been thereabouts for sub-4 if all had gone well on the day. In 2011, you were some way off and actually did better than might have been expected at the marathon (I know that the half you did in 2011 isn't comparable to the marathon in terms of hilliness). But I can't see what your training was like.
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21 Apr
9:10pm, 21 Apr 2024
2,764 posts
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RooA
By "natural" running pace do you mean you do all your training runs at that pace?
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21 Apr
10:44pm, 21 Apr 2024
30,427 posts
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fetcheveryone
What was your longest training run pre marathon?
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22 Apr
6:23am, 22 Apr 2024
2,329 posts
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Shades
If you think 9 minute miles felt too slow in your marathon then that suggests that you were doing your long runs far too fast. Long runs and easy runs in training need to be run slower than marathon pace.
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22 Apr
8:08am, 22 Apr 2024
491 posts
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SilentTim
If you think 9 minute miles felt too slow in your marathon then that suggests that you were doing your long runs far too fast. Long runs and easy runs in training need to be run slower than marathon pace. That's an interesting take. I suppose what I'm getting at is - when people run their normal training runs, are you deliberately slowing yourselves down? It feels uncomfortable for me to do that, which is why I'm wondering if that's contributing to me struggling and I should just try and run it by feel |
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22 Apr
8:09am, 22 Apr 2024
492 posts
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SilentTim
When you've done marathons before, SilentTim, what pace have you done your long training runs at? And what weekly mileage have you done in preparation? Ha, there's a thorny point. To be honest, my training has never been that great. Apart from the odd time when I was doing a 20 mile long run or a half, doubt I ever did over 20 miles per week |
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