As I mentioned in a previous post, I wanted to get a 15 mile run in, at planned marathon intensity, with no walk breaks. There were a couple reasons for this: (1) I wanted to see how my body would react, in terms of stiffness and tightening up, for a distance this long (my longest non-interrupted run ever), (2) I wanted to see if I could find a correlation with an intensity (HR) and pace - based on Daniels running formula and my VDOT value of 40 (picking 23:50 for the Nassaney 5k) or 41 (1:21 for 10 mile run), my marathon pace should be between 8:35 and 8:46 - so I wanted to see how my anticipated marathon intesity HR of 150-155 would correlate with those paces. Of course, those VDOT's weren't obtained using the ideal method (flat course in race conditions) - so there's a chance that my VDOT is actually a notch higher - but those are the latest numbers I have, so beign conservative I figured I'd plan on a 8:40 min/mile marathon pace. Lastly, I was curious as to whether it would be worth thinking about doing the full without any breaks - or if I'd take fewer breaks.
The complication with getting this run in was, first, being sick over this past weekend. With the days getting shorter, finding a time where I can get 2 hrs of running in is more and mroe difficult. This coming weekend is out for two reasons: (1) one week before the marathon - seems like a 15 miler is a bit much during a taper period, and (2) I'll be out of town on a vacation of sorts. Last week my mid-week run was done after work, but even with starting at 5:20 or so, by the time I finished around 6:45, it was getting dark. For a 15 mile run, I'd be out closer to 2 hours - so running after work was out. I could get up real early and go for a run, but the sun doesn't light things up until around 6am - so that'd mean I'd finish around 8-8:15am, have to shower and get ready for work and then commute 45 minutes - it'd be a late start to the day. Plus, getting up and going for a run right away sucks - I'm a slow waker. In the end I decided to get up early (5:30am), drive to work, start my run from there at about 6:30-6:45, and then shower in the building afterwards. At least this way I'd be much closer to being on time.
The first half was similar to the first half I did last week on my threshold run. I was originally intending to do that loop twice, but ended up deciding to go a different route - one that was flatter and therefore easier. One of the goals of this run was to try and correlate HR with pace, and going up and down hills would throw that correlation off.
I felt fine through the first few miles, but I did have a sense around mile 3 that perhaps I am still not fully recovered, energy-wise, from feeling under the weather. My legs just felt a tad more fatigued than I thought they should for only a few miles in. But pushing through wasn't too difficult, so I kept moving. Around mile 8 or so, I started noticing fatigue setting in - so the question then became when would I be maintaining the same HR, but have a slowing pace. In an attempt to fight that, I started drinking more fluids and making an effort to keep cadence up. This also seemed like it would have been a good time to do some quick stretching, but I didn't (I find simply doing a squat and staying down in that position for 4-5 seconds works pretty well). I ended up figuring that during the marathon, I'd be doing that multiple times during walk breaks - so I wasn't going to worry about it much here.
By the time I got to around mile 11 or 12, I could tell that this run was providing a good workout. My HR stayed within reason (about 150) - which was actually lower than I was anticipating, and my overall pace wasn't dropping significantly, as I was still holding around 8:45 min/mile average. However I could tell that the uninterrupted shock of running for this distance was causing just that little bit of extra stress in the legs to make you aware it is there. It occured to me that there might be two ways to push back ones' lactate threshold - do threshold runs, where your HR is at a higher intensity; or simply run for longer periods of time to wear yourself out. The benefit of the former is time efficiency (shorter runs), but the benefit of the latter is that you can get a threshold workout without the intensity of the former - something that could be beneficial in a taper period. Thats my theory, anyway.
As usual for long runs, I took the last mile as recovery, slowing down a bit to let the HR come down closer to 145. By the time I finished, it was just about exactly 15 miles to the corner convenience store, which was perfect - because it allowed me to pick up my recovery drink (chocolate milk), and then head back to the office to go about my day.
In the end, this is what I've learned:
- The projected avg HR of just about 150 is pretty much dead on with the predicted pace of 8:40 min/mile. That is what I was hoping would happen, because it makes projection for the real thing much easier if I know that 150 bpm, which is a sustainable HR, lines up nicely with 8:40 min/miles, which is just about exactly as Daniels VDOT calculator indicates.
- Definitely still taking walk breaks during the marathon. I dont know that I'd have another 11 miles in my legs without stressing them more than I'd like to. Not worth the risk.
- Will also make sure to stretch out briefly a few times during the marathon. It doesn't have to be much, but it seems to make a difference.
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