Goal Oriented
Running/Resting Update: This is my third day without a run, now skipping two runs. I plan to run short Mission Loops tomorrow to see if I can go 6 miles without pain, but will turn back early if I cannot.
But let's talk about the goal.
• • •
Setting a goal is a useful thing. When approaching a task, being somewhat specific about what you hope to achieve in that task is a handy way to guide yourself towards that accomplishment.
To some, just finishing a marathon is reward in itself. Because I must be insane, I started to get the idea that I would want to run this marathon, my first, within a particular time.
Somehow, right from the start, I pictured 3:30 (that's three hours and thirty minutes) as my goal. This was a naive way to set the goal: I saw that 8 minutes per mile works out to be 3:30, and I've felt quite comfortable at 8 minutes per mile, so with the proper training, I should be able to do the marathon at 8 minutes per mile.
Naive.
I had a handful of runs where I felt great at 7:30, even a couple of times in the park. Still, naive. In conversations with various K-Stars, I came to understand how the marathon is just no ordinary run. There's something about that distance that makes it very hard to keep going, no matter how well you are conditioned. Essentially, the argument is: this is my first marathon, and I don't know what to expect.
Various chapters of Advanced Marathoning describe the pysiological factors that limit performance. Mastering such factors would also provide doubt.
Still, I kept that value in the back of my head as I start my training.
The idea of the Long Run comes, and with it, what pace to run. Various sources suggest you should run those longer runs 60, 90, 120 slower than your goal pace. My 10 mile paces were at 7:30. Several 11 milers with hills at 7:45. 12 mile runs at 8:15. Common 7-10 milers under 7:45 without strain. Advice I now get? My goal is too moderate.
Then there are all these race-pacing calculators. Taking my best 10K prior to training:
Still, in my head, for a first marathon, on the hilly, challenging course in San Francisco, it seems reasonable to err conservatively. 3:30 still looks good. But to achieve 3:30 with those factors (first marathon, hilly), I should train as if my goal is to be faster than that. I mean, if I were to base my LT pace and Goal-Specific paces on a goal pace of 8:00/mile, I would be training at a lower intensity than my capability, and perhaps leave me poorly prepared given the challenging factors.
So I am setting my goals as follows:
What this means: I will be happy to finish the actual marathon in anything less than 3:30. I will train to make that happen, largely by training to beat 3:30. I will be thrilled with 3:25. In fact, I may need to plan a race strategy that will allow me to err and still come in under 3:30.
• • •
Of course, in the midst of dealing with an injury, thinking about this goal is very hard to do. I fear that the time I spend resting will make it harder for me to achieve the goal. I look at the schedule for this week and see three factors that should help me meet my goal, but I'll likely miss:
But let's talk about the goal.
• • •
Setting a goal is a useful thing. When approaching a task, being somewhat specific about what you hope to achieve in that task is a handy way to guide yourself towards that accomplishment.
To some, just finishing a marathon is reward in itself. Because I must be insane, I started to get the idea that I would want to run this marathon, my first, within a particular time.
Somehow, right from the start, I pictured 3:30 (that's three hours and thirty minutes) as my goal. This was a naive way to set the goal: I saw that 8 minutes per mile works out to be 3:30, and I've felt quite comfortable at 8 minutes per mile, so with the proper training, I should be able to do the marathon at 8 minutes per mile.
Naive.
I had a handful of runs where I felt great at 7:30, even a couple of times in the park. Still, naive. In conversations with various K-Stars, I came to understand how the marathon is just no ordinary run. There's something about that distance that makes it very hard to keep going, no matter how well you are conditioned. Essentially, the argument is: this is my first marathon, and I don't know what to expect.
Various chapters of Advanced Marathoning describe the pysiological factors that limit performance. Mastering such factors would also provide doubt.
Still, I kept that value in the back of my head as I start my training.
The idea of the Long Run comes, and with it, what pace to run. Various sources suggest you should run those longer runs 60, 90, 120 slower than your goal pace. My 10 mile paces were at 7:30. Several 11 milers with hills at 7:45. 12 mile runs at 8:15. Common 7-10 milers under 7:45 without strain. Advice I now get? My goal is too moderate.
Then there are all these race-pacing calculators. Taking my best 10K prior to training:
- Runners World: 3:16
- McMillan: 3:20
- Runners World: 3:12
- McMillan: 3:16
Still, in my head, for a first marathon, on the hilly, challenging course in San Francisco, it seems reasonable to err conservatively. 3:30 still looks good. But to achieve 3:30 with those factors (first marathon, hilly), I should train as if my goal is to be faster than that. I mean, if I were to base my LT pace and Goal-Specific paces on a goal pace of 8:00/mile, I would be training at a lower intensity than my capability, and perhaps leave me poorly prepared given the challenging factors.
So I am setting my goals as follows:
- Day of Race: 3:30 (8:00/mile)
- Marathon-Specific Training Pace: 3:23 (7:45/mile)
- Lactate Threshold Pace: 7:05/mile (which would correspond, according to McMillan, to a 3:20 marathon)
What this means: I will be happy to finish the actual marathon in anything less than 3:30. I will train to make that happen, largely by training to beat 3:30. I will be thrilled with 3:25. In fact, I may need to plan a race strategy that will allow me to err and still come in under 3:30.
• • •
Of course, in the midst of dealing with an injury, thinking about this goal is very hard to do. I fear that the time I spend resting will make it harder for me to achieve the goal. I look at the schedule for this week and see three factors that should help me meet my goal, but I'll likely miss:
- A 6 mile LT segment on an 11 mile run (an intense run)
- A 20 mile run (a long run)
- A 54 mile week (a near-peak level of miles)
posted by Brent at
2:48 PM
1 Comments:
A few comments:
First, I think while 3:30 is a very reasonable time goal for you, you really shouldn't be hell-bent on it. You really don't know what you might be in for: anything can happen on race day. I set 3:30 for my first time goal at SFM 2004, and came in almost twenty minutes SLOWER -- and boy howdy did that ever suck chunks.
Second, while I agree that you should set your LT workouts based on your current physiological parameters, your Marathon Pace runs should be done at marathon pace -- that is 8:00/mi. These runs are primarily not for any physiological benefit*, but rather to condition your mind-body machine to perform efficiently at goal pace.
Third, missing one LT run is not going to affect you all that greatly (or even at all) in the end. Missing a long run is a slightly greater impact. And missing your volume target for one week, again is not that important. What IS important is how healthy you stay for the remaining duration of training, and how consistently you train. To that end, you are far, far better off cutting down the total mileage and intensity (while keeping long runs and some intensity) and staying healthy, than trying to doggedly stay with this program -- which is a LOT of running, especially wrt the volume you were running before the program.
* Marathon Pace is too far under Threshold pace to be an effective stimulator of your threshold velocity (for the effort expended) and too far above recovery pace/effort to be useful in that sense. Hence it doesn't really have much physiological benefit except in tuning your running economy at that pace.
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