Madrid. 8 Weeks to go.

[Riazor Blue]

I’m back again. Well, after all, on Thursday I had a change of plan. I decided that I couldn’t go a whole week without some kind of series. So it was to the harbour wall I went. Whist there I ran 5 x 2000 metres. Each 2000m taking 9 minutes. I took one minute recoveries between each. 4.5 minutes per kilometer is what I am now aiming for in my next half on the 28th.

I have been thinking a lot (too much) about the pace for Madrid. It will be my last marathon for a couple of years I think. I would like to concentrate more on 10K and halves for a while. Therefore I would like to bang out a good time, as it will hopefully be my PB for a while. My current PB is 3h37m which is about 5’10” per Km. My current half PB is 1h39m which is about 4’45” per Km. I’m sure that I can knock 5 minutes off the half marathon, with a pace of 4’30”. The thing is, at what pace should I then run the marathon? I imagine that 5’00” will be easy to achieve, but could I do 4´45” to give me a time of 3h20m? That is what I would like to achieve, but it sounds tough.

Is it only me who is constantly doing this arithmetic in my head? I’m sure we all do it to some extent. Perhaps I’ve got too much time on my hands. I keep saying to myself “You’ll find out after the Vigo-Baiona half”, but I want to know NOW. Perhaps things would be plainer if I used the heart monitor and went solely on that. On the other hand, I’m sure that I could run faster than a supposed level on the HRM. Do we all think along these lines? Surely it’s not just me?

Back to last week, Saturday was a long run, 20Km on the seafront, completed in 1hour 45 minutes. I targetted 30 seconds per Km above my intended marathon pace. At least I’m getting a little better at judging my pace.

Or at least I thought I was. Sunday, a few hours after a fine lunch of a meat roll, stuffed with green olives, egg and minced pork (it sounds strange I know, but is yummy), roast potatoes followed by a sugar free crème caramel, coffee and a slice of sponge cake…. After all that (and a tia maria) I thought I’d see how 4’45” per Km feels over a bit of a distance. So, I went for 8Km, and should have finished in 38 minutes. So far, so good, as I actually finished in 37 minutes, very comfortably.

That was my ‘step-back’ week. 61.5 Km. This week to come, let’s see if I can up the kilometers a bit more, as the legs are still feeling good. My aim is for one looong run this weekend, about 32Km, which will be the longest I do. Then a couple of series sessions, one of 800m the other 3000m, a longish midweek run and a couple of easy runs inbetween all that. With good luck I should touch 100km this week.

I have been looking at the calender in Galicia for races, there's an 8km one the week before the half, another in Lugo the same weekend, Vig-Bay on 28th March then there's nothing until 26th April. There are 2 half marathons in May, they look interesting. The first one is on the 9th May, it's the one with empanadas, octopus and pork ribs for the competitors (if I'm going to miss Sunday lunch, I'll need something).