Now that it’s the latter half of February, many people have already picked their spring goal race and have gotten serious about working towards that goal. An issue I’ve seen with a number of runners I’m working with, however, is that they’ve already picked what their race time is going to be several weeks ago, and their measure of success will be binary – if they hit the mark they’ve set for themselves four months in advance, their season will have been a success, but if they fall short of that time, they have failed. This article discusses an alternative attitude to have while approaching the upcoming months of training and offers a recommendation of when and how to pick a goal pace that will enable you to run the best race you are capable of on the big day.
A Project PB client of mine recently completed a half marathon in 1:42, which was just shy of his personal best. Given that he had sprained his ankle over the Christmas holidays and had to spend several weeks cross-training while my wife Maura rehabilitated him, this was certainly a great result. He is now working towards another half marathon this coming May and after his recent race asked me, “should I try to run a 1:35 at the Blue Nose?” In the same week I had two other clients ask me the exact same question (as it pertained to them), and this was my advice: “It’s too early to pick a goal time at this point. Wait until you are into the taper phase of your training (i.e. about two weeks out from your goal race) and look back over the cycle and assess the totality of your training. The numbers will provide a fairly accurate depiction of your fitness and therefore what goal pace is reasonable for the race you’ve been training so hard for over the past several months.”
Moments after winning the London Marathon in April of 2007, Chunxiu Zhou spoke of chasing Paula Radcliffe's World Record (2:15) at the 2008 Olympic Games. Some regarded this as a premature race goal. Photo credit: Reuters
Suggested Reading: What Is Tapering? What is it not?
To expand on this, I’ll use myself as an example and examine my methodology for selecting a target as race day is nearing.
How do my training paces compare to my previous training cycle?
Since I got serious about marathoning back in late 2007, I’ve kept a fairly detailed training log that includes the distance of each run, the purpose for each run, and the pace of each run. If I was a better pupil I would also wear a heart-rate monitor which would tell me precisely how hard I was working at each pace, but instead I go by the very rudimentary “perceived exertion” method. (I do recommend wearing a heart rate monitor while training – this is an example of “do as I say, not as I do”.) So as I look back over my data for the recent training cycle, I compare my paces for each type of run to the previous cycle. What pace was sustainable for my long marathon pace workouts? What pace could I maintain for my lactate threshold, or tempo runs? How fast were my VO2max intervals? And the bulk of my weekly mileage: How fast was I running while still maintaining a conversation with someone? If I compare my paces across the board to previous training cycles and they’re noticeably faster, then it would stand to reason that I am that much fitter, which should be reflected in my race time.
Read: The Training Log, An Absolutely Essential Tool
Have I trained harder this cycle compared to prior cycles?
Over each successive training cycle I’ve been able to increase the overall training load from one cycle to the next. Put simply, training load is a summation of how many miles you run per week at particular levels of intensity. There are numerous combinations of increasing one’s training load, and up until now mine has been to keep my quality workouts fairly consistent from one season to the next, but increase the number of easy miles that I do. I’ve tried different approaches when I was younger, such as increasing quality while keeping weekly mileage constant, and wound up injured more often than not. Thus, I’ve become a proponent of adding easy mileage from one cycle to the next. And, coincidentally, my training paces have come down across the board, as discussed in the aforementioned paragraph.
A great quote from a mentor of mine who invited me to join his training group back in 2007 is “insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results”. If you haven’t trained any harder this season compared to last, does it make sense that you’ll magically be faster come race day?
What do my shorter tune-up races extrapolate out to over a longer race distance?
For people with a half or full marathon goal, it’s not a bad idea to find a shorter tune-up race a few weeks out from your goal race. It’s an opportunity to get into a race situation and test your fitness. In a perfect world, if I could find a 15km to Half marathon about 5 or 6 weeks out from my goal marathon, and a 8km to 10km two weeks out, that would be ideal. There are exercise physiology tables available that I have found to be very accurate when using a shorter race to predict the equivalent marathon performance. The table in Jack Daniels’ “Daniels’ Running Formula” book is one option, and the McMillan pace calculator is another. So if you’ve ran a hard 10km race in the weeks leading up to your goal half or full marathon, don’t set yourself up for disappointment by picking a goal time that is well under what your 10km race extrapolates out to.
Conclusion
I am a big fan of Running Times magazine. In the February/March 2012 issue, the Editor’s Note applies Warren Buffet’s wife’s five secrets to success to running. The fifth point was: don’t be too attached to the outcome. I had had my best training cycle ever leading up to the 2011 Chicago Marathon. I wouldn’t run 115 – 120 miles per week if I didn’t enjoy it, and I had a training log that I was very satisfied with. That particular race day was unseasonably hot, and I recall running by a thermometer around mile 21 that read 26 degrees Celsius. From the first mile I had settled into a pace that was a few seconds per mile slower than my initial goal pace in order to account for the heat; stubbornly setting out in the sub 5:30 miles I had originally intended would have been too risky. So in the end my time wasn’t quite what I was initially hoping for, but it was the best I had in me on the day. I learned a lot both on race day, and in the months leading up, and am motivated by the prospect of my hard work being reflected on future results pages.
Read other articles from Greg Wieczorek
About the Author: Greg Wieczorek is a Chartered Accountant and 2:25 marathoner residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He has coached his wife Maura from a 4:17 marathon debut to a personal best of 2:58 and helps others maximize their road race potential through his online coaching service Project PB.
