Three Miles at Marathon Pace

As usual we ran in the park, on the paved trails.  The trails that we like best have sort of a figure-8 shape, and the distance around the entire figure-8 is 3.19 miles.  That’s what I ran today, and I held as closely as I could to a run/walk ratio of 25/20, which is the ratio that I have thought I might run in the marathon next weekend.

The time for 3.19 miles was 35:48, for a pace of 11:13.  In 26.2 miles that would work out to about 4:54 hours, a little better than a 5-hour marathon.  There are delays, of course, for the porta-potty and for filling the water bottle at aid stations (they invite us to carry water so that they can cut the amount of cup litter, and we’ll do that).  I’m sure that those delays would put my time over 5 hours.

Perhaps I’ll run some of the race at a run/walk ratio of 30/20 and try to finish under 5.  We’ll see.  Do I really care?  Yes, but I have no good reason to care - my finish time only matters to me, no one else.  I have four more marathons coming up in the next two and a half months, so I don’t want to push these old bones too hard.  Today’s short run felt pretty easy - not even breathing hard.

Whining:  Zip.  I never even though about it.