Gale Fischer Sets New PR at the Illinois Marathon

Here is a rave review on the inaugural Illinois Marathon held Saturday, April 11th! This just came in from Gale Fischer.

I had a great time at the Illinois Marathon this weekend. The event was much bigger than expected with nearly 9000 participants in all events with almost 2000 in the marathon. Featured speakers for the expo and pasta dinner were Bart Yasso and Dick Beardsley. Listening to Dick Beardsely speak was worth the drive down. I finished 31 overall and was the 4th in my age group. I set a PR by over a minute and a half coming in at 2:56:52.

Beyond Boasts Martian Marathon Finishers!

Huns Brown qualifies for Boston 2010 at Martian Marathon

Reports just came in from the far reaches of outer space that Beyond Marathon Results are starting to roll in. At Sunday's Martian Marathon, Angela Van Heest finished her very first 26.2 despite becoming ill with a stomach malady midrace. “It was the best first half marathon I ever ran,” reported Angela. It comes as no surprise that the super fast Huns Brown ran a Boston-qualifying 3:09:46 Martian Marathon and finished 19th overall for the men. Despite defecting to Borgess Run Camp earlier in the season, Joel Pennington reported in that he ran a 4:01 Martian as a “training run.” Congratulations to all our Beyond Marathon Training Martian Marathon finishers. Let us know if we missed anyone!

Pace It or Break It!

Predicting Marathon Pace

As the spring marathon season approaches, it is important for you to nail down your best marathon pace. Improper pacing is the number one mistake that marathoners make so having a really good idea of what is a reasonable pace can make your marathon experience much more successful (and enjoyable!). During the winter training months, tune up races are few and far between, and training runs are usually slowed due to slick road conditions making marathon time prediction even more challenging. Below are some methods recommended by exercise physiologist Greg McMillan in a Running Times E-Newsletter. Thanks to Chris Crowell for passing this information along.

For those running the Boston Marathon, make your own Boston Pacing Bracelet at www.box.net/public/75o3rqgty9. You can chose from a variety of pacing strategies including even effort, fairly even effort, even pace, fairly even pace as well as customized.

Ways to Predict Your Best Marathon Pace

Runners and coaches have found several ways to estimate your best marathon pace. Here are a few good ones:

1) Race a half-marathon (if you are doing Boston or similar timed marathon, it is late for this option). Take your half-marathon time and double it then add five minutes. This has long been a quick rule of thumb for predicting marathon time. Doubling your half-marathon time and adding seven minutes is a bit more realistic for most marathoners. Of course, you can always use one of the many race time calculators and charts available online and in many running books to also gauge the marathon time predicted by your half-marathon performance.

2) Perform eight to ten 800 meter repeats. Run each repeat in the minutes and seconds of your goal hours and minutes of your upcoming marathon. Take equal recovery jog between each. For example, if you want to run three hours and thirty minutes for your marathon then run eight to ten 800 meter (2 laps of the track) repeats in 3 minutes and 30 seconds taking 3 minutes and 30 seconds jog between each. If you can perform this workout without having to strain to hit the time then this would predict that your marathon pace is reasonable. Special thanks to Bart Yasso for this “Yasso 800” workout.

3) Perform two to four marathon pace runs where you warm up then run for four to 10 miles at your goal marathon pace. If you can build up to an eight to 10 mile marathon pace run and not have to work exceedingly hard to maintain the pace, then your goal marathon pace is reasonable.

4) Run marathon pace at the end of a few long runs. If you can run the last four to eight miles of a long run at your goal marathon pace then your goal pace is reasonable. Do this on two to four long runs in the last couple of months before your marathon to get another gauge of whether your marathon pace is reasonable.

All of these methods are good but most coaches and runners find that there is no one single best predictor. Rather, it is a good idea to use several of the predictors listed above to better determine your best marathon pace. If you have a “best effort” recent race time of any distance, you can also use the McMillan Running Calculator to predict your marathon time as well as a wealth of information on your appropriate training pace.
McMillan Running Calculator

Greg McMillan is an exercise physiologist and certified USA Track and Field coach. He helps runners via his website http://www.macmillanrunning.com/.