Advance preparation…

I mentioned some time ago that I signed up for the virtual London Marathon in early October. I have some moments of “what I was thinking” and others of excitement. I’m not keeping a scorecard of which feeling is in the lead.

I’m sure it’s a “duh” statement that preparing for a marathon can take a long time. When I signed up for a few in my late teens and early twenties, I knew what the training blueprint was in terms of numbers of weeks and miles and I knew my goal time. Beyond that, I was kind of winging it and though I finished them in decent times, it wasn’t until I ran one when I was twenty-six that I actually achieved a goal time. This was because I mapped out my mile-by-mile pace based on the course instead of adhering to the training plan and then running with a basic idea of what I needed to do. Nearly sixteen years later, I’ll make another attempt with additional thought put into it this time.

My weekly mileage has been at 30-35 for the past year or so. I’ll need to run more miles per week but given how hard I’ve been running recently, I’ll also need to learn to occasionally back off on pace. Training for shorter races can be intense on your legs because you’re running at higher speeds more frequently. While I am comfortable at a 7:15-7:30/mile pace, when I ran ten miles in the snow a few weeks ago and had to run slower, my pace was around 8:00/mile but my legs didn’t feel as thrashed when I was done. Again, maybe a “duh” statement but it was a good reminder that going a little easier may allow for the extra miles I’ll need. As I get closer to the formal start of training in early June, I’ll be working on different pacing so that it’s not quite as jarring of a transition.

Sometime before June, I’ll take a week off just to let my body have a rest. I’m due to get my second COVID vaccine shot in early May and since many people report symptoms afterwards, that seems like a logical time to stop running for a few days. If I have no symptoms, then I’m planning to rest anyway but if I don’t feel well, I’ve not lost any planned training time. In the meantime, I’ll start to wind my mileage down to the 25-30 range to ease up as I approach a more intense schedule.

Race pace preparation. This is the most difficult one. Because I’m comfortable in a 7:15-7:30/mile range, I would see that as a reasonable goal for 26.2 which would put me at 3:10-3:15 time. That being said, it’s been a very long time since I’ve done a full marathon and though I remember the pain, I’m sure that time has erased some of the vividness. At some point in the next couple of weeks, I’ll tackle 14-16 and see how my pace plays out. Whatever I can do there, I can probably (with training) replicate over 26.2, and maybe aim just a few seconds faster per mile.

In the meantime, I’ll start to ease into the preparation and training in the next couple of months, with a few time trials or maybe races sprinkled in to keep sharp.