First day of an 18 week training plan. Pfitzinger's plan had 7 miles with 10 strides today and 9 miles on Thursday. I'm leaning towards doing a 5k race this weekend. I've done one the past two years before starting a fall marathon training program. There is one that is usually held in the beginning of June around the campus of a local university but they're not holding it this year due to construction. There's a 5k race about a 30 min drive on Saturday which would still allow me to maintain my schedule of a long run on Sunday which I'm looking at doing. So I thought it might be better to flip the Tuesday and Thursday planned runs to allow a bit of a taper, plus the strides would hopefully allow my legs to remember how to turnover more quickly.
So today called for 9 miles at general aerobic pace which I've always done at long run pace which Pfitz' says is between 8:00 and 8:45 min/mile for a 3:10 marathon pace (10-20% slower). I usually do this at a HR of less than 160 so I tried to maintain the HR to see where the pace is.
| Lap | Lap Time | HR Avg | Lap | Lap Time | HR Avg | |
| 1 | 09:05.7 | 140 | 6 | 08:06.7 | 160 | |
| 2 | 08:09.7 | 156 | 7 | 08:00.6 | 159 | |
| 3 | 08:07.3 | 156 | 8 | 08:23.2 | 159 | |
| 4 | 07:53.7 | 161 | 9 | 08:10.5 | 160 | |
| 5 | 08:05.2 | 161 | 10 | 03:25.3 | 157 |
Pretty much where it should be, though I felt I was working harder than I normally would at GA pace. I'm not sure if I could hold this pace for 20 miles though. It was relatively cool this morning and a pretty good weather for a run so I wouldn't be surprised if the pace slows down over the next few weeks at this HR as the temps creep up.
Pfitz suggests some tune-up races for the last couple weeks of the marathon training. There are 3 planned in total. Checking around, there's a 15 k race and an 8k race on the exact days that Pfitz wants the races to be. Coincidence or what? The 3rd race will probably be a Yasso 800 workout which I did last year and found to be a pretty good predictor for the marathon. Anyways I mention the races because the 15k race is at an event I ran last year. In order to encourage early registration, they are offering those who ran last year an opportunity to win some prizes (including a $1000 New balance gift certificate). The deadline for early registration to be eligible is May 31st. I rarely sign up early for races (except for marathons that close early) though the prospect of free stuff is tempting.
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Pretty much where it should be, though I felt I was working harder than I normally would at GA pace. I'm not sure if I could hold this pace for 20 miles though.
I don't think that the paces for the GA and the long runs should be the same though so you shouldn't necessarily feel like you could hold that pace for 20 miles. I think it says that in the book and if you use the McMillian calculator which I think lines up pretty well with the Pfitz plan in most cases it has the range of the long runs a minute while the GA are 30s. For example, my GA (or 'easy' runs) are 8:43-9:13 while the long run paces are 8:43-9:43. I don't remember what the Pfitz book says, but long runs should be 10-20% slower than your MRP, I just dont' remember the wording for the GA runs.
in short...too late...you should be fine!
Good luck figuring out the training pace. I think you had a pretty good start there!!
Heres a link I find useful...
http://misweb.cbi.msstate.edu/~rpearson/intervals.html
I have 2 questions (Sorry!)...1) What's a stride and 2) Are you going to do Hill Training during your program?
Someone told me to just focus on speedwork because it's pretty much flat except for at Windemere when you are going up the On ramp, and maybe a little hill going into Tommy Thomson Park...
Would Hill training still have benefits?
P.S. Did you sign up for the race?
Strides are basically short stretches of running (about 100m) where you slowly accelerate to close to your maximum speed for about 20 m and then you gradually slow down.
No, I won't be doing hill training cause I generally hate doing hills. Scotiabank is pretty flat so there's really no need for it. Even the on-ramps aren't too bad. The only real hill is that section on Lakeshore by the tennis courts, but it doesn't take too long to get up.
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