Saturday, April 05, 2008

Beantown Prediction

It’s funny- after running 37 marathons- I can safely say that I respect the distance. What's more important, the experience I have gained allows me to set realistic goals; this is directly proportional to the quality of the training cycle. Having ran B*ston four times also gives me added edge in prognosticating a finishing time.

For the 16 weeks before the race this has been my weekly mileage, with only one longish run: 42, 45, 31, 31, 42, 37, 29, 22, 36, 30, 9, 53, 47, 47, 45*, 30* (*projected). You may remember that my original goal was to break 3:10, but that was assuming a 60 mpw training cycle. As seen from the weekly mileage it would be asinine to even dream of it. However, I think I can sneak in a sub 3:16.

What really makes this prediction interesting is a run I did on April 1; I had planned on running easy for five miles and coming back at goal MP for a total of 10. I was feeling good. There was a slight head wind I and I was getting tired too easily and at the turn around point I knew I could not run ~7:25s for five so I backed off to only three. I was able to only run two and I called it quits. I finished that run with three easy miles and felt totally demoralized. The effort was there, but the springiness in my stride was nonexistent.

Two days later, my schedule called for a tempo run. The previous week I ran eight miles with three miles sandwiched at 6:50 pace. I figured ~7mpm for four miles was doable. So I head out and immediately my legs sprung to life. I hit the 2.5 miles w/u in 19:20 (7:44 pace). Right here and then I knew the tempo would be completed satisfactorily. And I wasn’t wrong. The splits were as follow: 6:42, 6:53, 6:45 and 6:38!... The best part was the c/d where my legs really felt fresh and strong. I ran the 2.5 miles c/d in 18:31, or roughly 7:24!!!

What did I do differently? I had a deep tissue massage the previous night. I believe the massage loosen up the tight tendons, thereby allowing the working muscles to do their job.

The revised A goal, as noted above, is sub 3:16 (incidentally, I I hit this time, it will be a course PR). The B goal is sub 3:21. There. I said it. The C goal is just to finish with a smile in my face :-)

Happy running.

6 comments:

Love2Run said...

I like your predictions, you know the course and have a recent marathon in the bank. I'm hoping to be right on your tail too ;-) Good luck!

Anonymous said...

Oh, I think 3:16 is definitely doable, especially w/ the marathons you have under your belt...

Mindi said...

Good luck! I can't wait to hear your report!

Appletini said...

Good luck... I still can't believe that you enjoy running.

Arcane said...

Good luck!

Mindi said...

Darn! You never gave us your bib # for tracking purposes!

I hope you are having a GREAT run today!