Same Time, Same Channel

Slow day for both of us. I think I'm going to take Tuesdays off from strength work because that's the day I usually clean house. Very strenuous, especially after running. Might be just a psychological thing, but it helps.

Hey Carolyn ... slow is good, recovery is good. I think you need to slow your fartleks down a little, they are short enough that you need to be able to do them and not really feel them the next day. I have a hard time with these too, I generally do them too slow and my 3-5K pace is much slower than it should be based on my other race times because of it ... finding the "just right pace" is so hard!! Good job!

Thanks for the advice, Bonnie. I will try to slow down my fartleks. I knew I was doing them faster than 3K pace, but didn't know whether that was a problem.

it is never a problem if you can recover properly! Every time I ask my coach if running XX:XX (too fast) is going to benefit me, or hurt me, he always tells me, "it depends on if you can recover before your next workout/run, if you can't it hurts you, if you can it helps you" ;-).

Basically, my belief is that in the cycle of training you are in right now you should be just stimulating your muscles to go fast sometimes ... pace is really not as big of deal -- that will come after you have built up you solid base and start working on race specific training. It is much more important to "hit certain paces" nearer to your key race (or at least that is my interpretation).

My key race is in mid-May. How close to I have to be to be worried about hitting certain paces? Or maybe I really shouldn't worry about pace at all since this will be my first marathon.

You are following Brad Hudson's plan aren't you? I have his book at home, but I don't remember right off the top of my head when he starts having really "race specific" pace work ... basically, when he starts having you run longer training runs in the 1/2 marathon/marathon range (or shorter speed things at 10K pace) then I would consider that to be "race specific" and pace would make a difference. However, when I say "make a difference" it could be detrimental to go "too" fast, and not as effective to go "too" slow. Since this is your first marathon and you don't have years of track or just years of running under your belt (like me and unlike many of the real speedy people here on the blog) I would shoot too slow versus too fast this first training cycle. I am very conservative though -- I really don't like to get injured and take a real long term approach to my running. My first marathon will be this spring too (after almost 6 years of running), primarily because I wanted to make sure I built up slowly, did not get injured, and can run the time that I would like.

You will do fine, don't worry too much about pace - it will come - just make sure you get the recovery you need so you can keep running -- that is the most important factor (in my opinion).

Yes, I am using Brad Hudson's intermediate marathon plan. It looks like my first run with race-specific pace (actually marathon pace + 10-20 seconds per mile) is in about two and a half weeks.

I've just got to figure out what my marathon pace should be. I've used McMillan's calculator, but I've been going off a half marathon I did last August, and I'm in a lot better shape now than I was then. I've got a more recent 5K time, but I'm not sure that a 5K time is a good predictor of marathon pace, and I feel like I could have run the 5K faster if I hadn't spent the first half sticking with a friend.

I've got a half marathon in March that I can use to calculate pace, but I'll just have to make an educated guess until then.

Thanks for your help.

The 1/2 in march will be helpful - until then, it really won't hurt you to use the 1/2 you have and see how the faster end of Greg's pace chart feels based on that run until then - at least for the first couple weeks of the faster training anyway. You will still benefit from the runs ... start slowly (during the workout) and then let yourself go as fast as you need on the last 2-3 miles/repeats. If you end up starting out fast and ending slower then you will know you are going too fast.