08/27/2005

Workout: marathon-specific 15mi w/12mi at marathon race pace.

The conditions--weather and beyond--were less than ideal, though mixed. I headed out around 8/8:30am, thinking I would miss the bulk of the training groups on the MVT South. With a steady rain falling most of the morning, I thought that this might deter even more casual trail enthusiasts. Still, I encountered about 8-10 packs of training groups. I guess these are the "lazy" training groups, who don't get out at 6am or so.

While the rain was annoying, the temperature was nearly optimal, in the high 60s. It was almost cool enough for a long-sleeved shirt as an afterthought, but did warm up a bit. More annoying was the bee/hornet/other stinging insect that zapped me on the lower right lip just before the mile 3 mark. Ouch.

Time and effort-wise, I am very happy with the results. The breakdown:

Mile 01--07:30, 160 average HRM
Mile 02--06:22, 160 average HRM
Mile 03--06:30, 160 average HRM
Mile 04--06:57, 162 average HRM
Mile 05--06:37, 158 average HRM
Mile 06--06:44, 159 average HRM
Mile 07--06:46, 157 average HRM
Mile 08--07:17, 160 average HRM
Mile 09--06:45, 162 average HRM
Mile 10--07:00, 160 average HRM
Mile 11--06:35, 164 average HRM
Mile 12--06:33, 160 average HRM
Mile 13--06:25, 163 average HRM
Mile 14--07:19, 154 average HRM
Mile 15--06:59, 158 average HRM

Total time was 01:42:22, an average of roughly 06:50/mile. For the 12 miles at race pace, the total was 01:20:34, or an average of 06:43. That in itself should be enough to satisfy me, especially considering that miles 5 through 11 were almost all hills; see if you can discern from the splits which direction had more downhills than up!

However, despite my propensity to obey all traffic signals, I still slowed at most stop signs, which by my count added around 15 seconds to the pace miles. Additionally, I'm pretty sure I boned measuring mile 8, which was a 1/2 mile past the trail marker and back. While I was noting my splits at each mile marker, I failed to also take note of the elapsed time at the mile 7 marker, and I'm pretty sure that I put in a few extra yards. This seems obvious when looking at the almost identical times for miles 7 (06:46) and 9 (06:45), mile mile 8 came in at nearly 30 seconds over that (07:17) and it was a reasonably flat part of the trail, as I recall.

Taking into account these factors, and throwing out mile 8, the average comes down to roughly 06:38. With a course with fewer hills than this, I think the 06:45s and 06:50s will even out with the 06:35s and 06:25s.

One preparation item I did not do was to set some HRM zones to help me stay at my "race pace". But based on this workout today, I think I can safely say that the desired pace is roughly 160.

GEL REPORT: I had a Powerade green apple gel pack at mile 10. Best one so far, and a possible candidate for race day.