{"id":2213,"date":"2016-10-18T20:36:41","date_gmt":"2016-10-19T00:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/?p=2213"},"modified":"2016-10-18T20:36:41","modified_gmt":"2016-10-19T00:36:41","slug":"a-marathon-experiment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/?p=2213","title":{"rendered":"A Marathon Experiment"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"FullSizeRender\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Two words that probably shouldn’t go together: marathon <\/em><\/strong>and experiment<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And yet I find myself two and a half weeks away from a marathon that will indeed be a bit of an experiment. Why? \u00a0Well, I haven’t actually been training for a marathon, or more specifically a marathon pace. I spent the summer hiking and trail running. \u00a0I have this year completed three 50k races, the last one only two and a half weeks ago. \u00a0So, can I finish 42.2km? \u00a0Absolutely (that is of course assuming no injuries – at this moment I am knocking wood!). \u00a0But trail running 50km of rolling hills is very different from running a marathon on roads. \u00a0On the surface, the marathon should seem a little easier. \u00a0Pavement is faster than dirt, it is almost 8k shorter, and the Road2Hope marathon is famous for its lengthy downhill section. \u00a0Piece of cake, right?<\/p>\n

Here’s the slight glitch – I have not been running “faster” paces (faster always being relative) for any distance. \u00a0I may be slow in a marathon, but I really slow down on trails. \u00a0I also walk many of the inclines in a trail race, so \u00a0I have not been trying to sustain long steady efforts. \u00a0OK, as I reread that it sounds a little ridiculous. \u00a0I guess if you do 50k’s you are in fact trying to sustain long steady efforts. \u00a0But, the fact is, as much as I may be able to finish a 50k (and recover nicely I might add), trying to maintain even a 6:20 min\/km pace over a distance is currently challenging for me. \u00a0I honestly can’t believe that I have actually run half marathons under a 5:45 pace. \u00a0How did I do that and not die???<\/p>\n

So this marathon is truly going to be an experiment. \u00a0What happens when you have done plenty of long, very slow runs, but virtually no tempo or speed runs? \u00a0What happens when you have already done 3 ultra races in 5 months? \u00a0What happens when you are trying to combine a recovery period with a taper to be ready for a marathon? \u00a0And just to throw in one more variable, what happens when your final “long run” is actually going to be a 6 hour orienteering event in the Gatineau Hills? \u00a0At the moment I have no idea! \u00a0All I know is that I do actually have a plan:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Start slowly!!!<\/li>\n
  2. Use 10 and 1’s. \u00a0I have not raced a marathon this way, but I did use this method when pacing the Ottawa Marathon<\/li>\n
  3. Try to maintain a 6:20 – 6:30 min\/km pace, but take advantage of the downhill to pick up the pace a bit. The weekend before last I did 20k at this pace and found it to be a bit of an effort to maintain. \u00a0This past Saturday I held the pace very comfortably for 26k. \u00a0But another 16k??? Hmmmm…..<\/li>\n
  4. Eat M&M’s. \u00a0They worked on the ultras so why not?<\/li>\n
  5. Pray for no potty stops and no gale force winds, both of which occurred at the same race last year.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Speaking of last year, my time was 4:34. \u00a0I’m going to put it out there that I think it is possible I could beat that time by a slim margin. \u00a0If not, well Road2Hope will be my last long run of the season because regardless, it is time to take a little break!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Two words that probably shouldn’t go together: marathon and experiment. And yet I find myself two and a half weeks away from a marathon that will indeed be a bit of an experiment. Why? \u00a0Well, I haven’t actually been training for a marathon, or more specifically a marathon pace. I spent the summer hiking and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3amQ2-zH","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2214,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions\/2214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/raz-family.ca\/RunKristi\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}