Easy v marathon race pace
gorple76
Posts: 162 Member
As a novice I'm struggling to get my head around pacing myself for training. On the one hand I read that for a first marathon you should just aim to finish but on the novice 2 Hal higdon plan it calls for some pace runs. I'm not sure this would be any faster than my easy run pace?! Any advice would be really welcome.
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From what I can tell, "in general" pace runs are at the pace you expect to run the race. Easy runs should be 2-3 minutes/mile slower than that.1
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2-3 minutes slower than marathon pace is way to slow for training. For 5k training maybe but that is way to slow for the vast majority of marathon runners. My easy pace is 9:30-9:45ish, and my goal marathon pace is 9.09. The majority of your marathon needs to be run in your aerobic zone and 2-3 minutes slower than that might not even get the heartrate to recovery paces.
I'd say 30-90 seconds would be the range you want to keep.1 -
If you really just want to finish, don't worry about pace, just get the miles in. I mean it. For most beginners (including myself if only I had realised at the time) miles are the only thing that will make a difference. However, if you decide you do want to push it a little in your first marathon, it's a very good idea to get in some marathon-paced runs, or it can all go to pieces on race day. Again, I speak from painful experience.
I agree with the above post that 30-90 seconds faster than your plodding pace is the marathon pace to go for. I don't think it's worth doing unless you do at least an hour at that pace, to get a good sense for how it feels. That's also long enough to decide whether that really is your marathon pace or whether you should aim faster/slower.
Once you're happy with the pace, you can slowly build it up to around 15 miles if you want, but don't try it for every long run. Listen to your body and don't wear yourself out training. Nobody hands out medals at the end of a training run!1 -
I also struggled with this in my first two marathons, which I just wanted to finish without feeling terrible. I didn't push the pace in those races, so my training paces and "race" paces were the same since I wasn't racing. I just wanted to hit a pace that I could maintain for 26.2. But if I were doing a pace run, I'd do them at a HM or 10k pace which was definitely faster than my endurance pace I used for long runs.
Now I am in a place with my running where I am training to race. I plan to race my next marathon at a 7:50-8:05 pace, and so I do my long runs at about an 8:50-9:05 pace because then it's all about time on my feet. My last longest run took me 3:16, and I plan to finish my race in just 10-15 more minutes. When I do tempo runs, I do them either at marathon or half-marathon pace (HM pace is about 7:25-7:40).1 -
You have not given any of your running history so we are all kind just throwing suggestions out there may or may not be appropriate for you. It is not clear if you are calling yourself a novice as it relates to running in general or as it relates to training for and running a marathon. If you can give some additional info then we can provide better assistance.
As I see it you have a few options:- Drop down to Higdon's Novice 1 plan which doesn't include any pace runs and just concentrate on distance. This is the plan that I followed for my first marathon and it got me to the finish. Having said that, I will also admit that I started running again in May to start training for a HILLY TRAIL marathon in November. I would not recommend anyone else follow my example. I would have enjoyed the run much more if I had a more solid base for starting into the training plan.
- Continue using Higdon's Novice 2 plan, but do the pace runs at your normal training pace. Once you remove the pace runs the only remaining difference between Novice 1 and Novice 2 is the total weekly distance.
- If you have previous race times you can use a race predictor ( http://www.runnersworld.com/pace-calculators/race-times-predictor ) to estimate a marathon finish time then add 26 minutes onto that and calculate a race pace from there (http://www.runnersworld.com/pace-calculators/running-pace-calculator).
- Make sure to use the longest recent race time with the predictor since the calculation tries to account for fatigue but the greater the difference between the entered race distance and the target distance the greater the potential for error.
- Adding 26 minutes on to the estimator's time was to make sure that the marathon time would be an easy time to hit and would result in marathon race pace being a minute slower than what the estimator's time would have produced. However if the race you used for the estimator was not run hard then you might not want to add that much time.
- If you are truly a novice runner I would recommend option 1.
- If you are an experienced runner that is finally stepping up to the marathon distance and can handle the increased distances and do not care about your finish time then go with option 2.
- If you go with option 3 there is a higher likelihood that you will race with a target time and not just to finish. If you miss the targeted time the disappointment can ruin the experience of finishing your first marathon.
Honestly even if you don't intend to have a target time, you know what your training pace is and you start doing projections of what kind of finish time is possible. The important thing is not to put too much thought and weight into those projections. I came in an hour slower than my projection and was slightly disappointed, but it did not ruin my day because I did not train to hit a projected time. I only trained to finish.4 - Drop down to Higdon's Novice 1 plan which doesn't include any pace runs and just concentrate on distance. This is the plan that I followed for my first marathon and it got me to the finish. Having said that, I will also admit that I started running again in May to start training for a HILLY TRAIL marathon in November. I would not recommend anyone else follow my example. I would have enjoyed the run much more if I had a more solid base for starting into the training plan.
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Thanks everyone. This is all really useful. I think I was getting hung up on expecting a bigger difference in pace between my easy and paced runs, whereas 30-60 secs makes sense. I ran my paced run this morning and paced it mainly by effort and can in only slightly faster than my predicted marathon pace. I'm going to try to take my easy runs a little easier (I run hilly routes so difficult to judge) and maybe even enjoy them more!0
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You have not given any of your running history so we are all kind just throwing suggestions out there may or may not be appropriate for you. It is not clear if you are calling yourself a novice as it relates to running in general or as it relates to training for and running a marathon. If you can give some additional info then we can provide better assistance.
As I see it you have a few options:- Drop down to Higdon's Novice 1 plan which doesn't include any pace runs and just concentrate on distance. This is the plan that I followed for my first marathon and it got me to the finish. Having said that, I will also admit that I started running again in May to start training for a HILLY TRAIL marathon in November. I would not recommend anyone else follow my example. I would have enjoyed the run much more if I had a more solid base for starting into the training plan.
- Continue using Higdon's Novice 2 plan, but do the pace runs at your normal training pace. Once you remove the pace runs the only remaining difference between Novice 1 and Novice 2 is the total weekly distance.
- If you have previous race times you can use a race predictor ( http://www.runnersworld.com/pace-calculators/race-times-predictor ) to estimate a marathon finish time then add 26 minutes onto that and calculate a race pace from there (http://www.runnersworld.com/pace-calculators/running-pace-calculator).
- Make sure to use the longest recent race time with the predictor since the calculation tries to account for fatigue but the greater the difference between the entered race distance and the target distance the greater the potential for error.
- Adding 26 minutes on to the estimator's time was to make sure that the marathon time would be an easy time to hit and would result in marathon race pace being a minute slower than what the estimator's time would have produced. However if the race you used for the estimator was not run hard then you might not want to add that much time.
- If you are truly a novice runner I would recommend option 1.
- If you are an experienced runner that is finally stepping up to the marathon distance and can handle the increased distances and do not care about your finish time then go with option 2.
- If you go with option 3 there is a higher likelihood that you will race with a target time and not just to finish. If you miss the targeted time the disappointment can ruin the experience of finishing your first marathon.
Honestly even if you don't intend to have a target time, you know what your training pace is and you start doing projections of what kind of finish time is possible. The important thing is not to put too much thought and weight into those projections. I came in an hour slower than my projection and was slightly disappointed, but it did not ruin my day because I did not train to hit a projected time. I only trained to finish.You have not given any of your running history so we are all kind just throwing suggestions out there may or may not be appropriate for you. It is not clear if you are calling yourself a novice as it relates to running in general or as it relates to training for and running a marathon. If you can give some additional info then we can provide better assistance.
You're right - more info would have been helpful! I think I'm probably between the novice 1 and 2 plans. I went for the second in the end simply because I like yo run more frequently. I've only been running since nov 2014 though (starting from zero) and have only completed 10k races to date. I have a reasonable base in terms of weekly mileage though (20-25 for the past 5/6 months) and run trails (the race is flat). I think I'll take your option 2 (thank you!) and maybe not get too hung up about the pace but focus on effort. I have a sort of target time (based on the race cut off and my predicted pace) so will no doubt monitor my pace against that, but I'll try not to let it dictate my mood during training and the race. Tbh even entering a marathon is so far out if my comfort zone that I'm proud of myself for even considering it!0 - Drop down to Higdon's Novice 1 plan which doesn't include any pace runs and just concentrate on distance. This is the plan that I followed for my first marathon and it got me to the finish. Having said that, I will also admit that I started running again in May to start training for a HILLY TRAIL marathon in November. I would not recommend anyone else follow my example. I would have enjoyed the run much more if I had a more solid base for starting into the training plan.
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Lots of good info here. May I add...
You have no historical information to figure your "marathon pace" or maybe even "goal marathon pace". Although, using some of the online race predictor tools (i.e. McMillan Running Calculator" you can use say your HM time to predict a marathon time. That's if you ran a recent HM race.
As most said, your goal (if you never ran a marathon before) is just finish it. Although, I did have a goal to sub-4 on my first, but this is highly not recommended. So getting the mileage in regardless of your paces during training should be your main focus.
For a first time marathoner, your main pace in training should be Easy or Conversational.
You can use a plan like Hal Higdon as many suggested. But I have a problem with some of the precanned plans such HH. I wrote a blog about this:
http://therunningstan.blogspot.com/2016/02/my-gripes-on-training-plans.html
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@Stoshew71 thank you! Lots there to think about. Largely the point about bring a long way off the marathon, but using an 18wk training plan. I've tried to expand it by doubling up on lots of the weeks and peaking and sustaining for a few weeks also. Is the runners world book worth looking at?0
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Let me add, that the goal is not only to finish...but to finish it the same day you started it.1
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@Stoshew71 thank you! Lots there to think about. Largely the point about bring a long way off the marathon, but using an 18wk training plan. I've tried to expand it by doubling up on lots of the weeks and peaking and sustaining for a few weeks also. Is the runners world book worth looking at?
It was a very good book that had a lot of general information to think about for a newbie. But to get where I am at, I had to supplement with a lot of different other sources to get the specifics that i go by.
What you will run into is varied methodologies and opinions on the "correct" way to train. You have to be able to read from different sources and take the parts that make the most sense to you.1
