Marathon Pace - Take 2

In about a month, I am going to be running in my second marathon. Last year (without much training) I decided to run a marathon because it was put on by a race company called "Tracy's Racing" and the race was on my birthday. Probably not the best reasons to sign up for a 26.2 mile race.

I survived!

Since I wasn't familiar with marathon pacing, I Googled it! I found a website called "MARCO Marathon Calculator". The premise is simple, select your race distance, enter your desired finish time, and the website will calculate your pace for each mile.

Like I said, I had not been training for a marathon, I had no idea what pace I could maintain, and I definitely had no clue as to what a reasonable finish time was. So, what should a marathon newbie do? Did you say take the Boston Qualifying time for your age group and subtract 10 minutes? Ding! Ding! Ding! If that was your answer, then you win a prize because that is EXACTLY what I did!

This turned out to NOT be a very good plan. There was no way, with my lack of training, that I could reach that finish time. On top of that, I started out way too fast and slowly deteriorated. 

Birthday Pace 2012

My CIM Plan

This year, after several triathlons and a couple half marathons, I have once again turned to the MARCO calculator. This time I was a little more conservative with my finish time. I have also been practicing running at the correct pace.

CIM Plan

Hopefully, when the starting gun goes off next month, I won't take off like one of my dogs chasing a squirrel :-)