Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Marathon Pace

Drove down to the Tuesday night run with Heather on a beautiful spring evening. I started off more quickly than I would have liked and the first mile went by in 6:45. I fell into step with Stevus and a couple other guys and we kept this pace up through the turn around. I was pushing to hold the speed and it seemed really fast. It suddenly dawned on me that it was almost exactly marathon pace (for the first 18 miles of the marathon at least) and damn if it didn't feel about twice as hard as it did in Boston.

I kept it up for about 1/4 mile more and thought "Why the hell am I doing this to myself?" Dropped the pace into the 7:15 range and took it easier the rest of the way to the Art Museum. For some reason Boston seems a lot further back than 9 days but my legs definitely remember it.

I want to run well at Broad Street on May 6th, but I think taking it easy would be much more of a benefit that pushing myself right now. It feels like I have no chance in hell of breaking my 61 minute time from last year. In my head I know I have gained a lot of fitness in the past year and I should be able to break my time but I just can't wrap my head around 6:00 minute pace or better for 10 miles. A couple guys who ran Boston in 2006 had big PR's at Broad Street and I am hoping for the same despite how far fetched that pace seems at the moment.

1 comment:

ian said...

I've felt like this going into Broad Street every year. I don't understand it, but it's always fast. One thing's for sure: you're a much better runner than you were a year ago.