For running, for a long time, 3 hours 30 minutes was a part of my running identity. It took me three marathons to hit it but was a goal from the beginning. Even with later efforts, it had the gravitational effects of a mean to which everything will regress to. It is essentially a marathon you'd run if you kept just under 5 minute kilometres, another mean value with extraordinary gravitational power for me. Early on, based on my performances at other distances, race calculators boldly said that I could do faster, well out of the orbit of 3:30, but when it came to race day I was always doomed to underperform the expectation. My personal best at the marathon is 3:22, which itself was an underperformance on a well-trained year. In 2023 with a pile of mileage under my belt, I could only do 3:34 in my best of two performances.
It is safe to say I've been burnt enough from hope, and while I do think that I will better 3:22 at some stage, there is an assumption in my being that I'm a 3:30 person. And while the benchmark for a serious marathoner is 3:00, that's a cake that does not have a slice for me.
Even with this fatalism, 2024 has come to possibly be the Peppermint Patty who has put a time in front of me to kick to goal. Every metric is pointing to a much better time than I have ever had before. My 5km time indicates 3:11 is possible. My half marathon time suggests 3:06. The marathon, however, is quite different to these events and needs different training to actualise these times, but even my training is indicating it possible.
Six weeks out from the Kirikiriroa marathon I ran a 33km long run with three roughly 5km sections that were meant to be in the range of "marathon pace", the last of which was to be after the 25th kilometre, when you begin to tire, and should be the fastest of the 5km intervals. This can be hard to judge if the terrain is hilly because, while you have the pace showing on your smartwatch, you never know how the ascents and descents affect pace. This can be fixed with apps which can make adjustments for different surfaces and give you an idea of your "gradient adjusted" paces (GAP) once you're home in the analysis. For this reason, I chose to run along the cycleway by the motorway and return via a flat river valley through Henderson, I had planned to run the first at 4:40/km, then 4:30, and finally 4:20. On the run, I felt I nailed the first two but struggled on the third as expected. Back at home, I got to unexpected news: when adjusted for gradients, the three 5km segments were 4:30, 4:26 and 4:23 respectively. Clearly, the river valley had more undulation than the others and made what felt like a difficult section reflect that I was putting in more effort than the other two. 4:30/km pace, if it becomes my pace for the marathon would be a 3:10 result. 4:23/km, the final pace from the training which should be more reflective of my ability, if it were to become my pace for the marathon would be a 3:05 marathon result. This training run was also apparently the second fastest 30km effort of my life, only achieved before in race situations.
Of course, there is plenty of room for chicken counting. There is still plenty of training to do and improvement to make. But also factors beyond myself could sabotage these possible outcomes. There are three more peak weeks of training and currently I'm still intending to do the Huntly Half Marathon which will be the best indication of a target time.
If I were permitted to do some chicken counting and blue sky dreaming, I would like to think that I could hit the 3:05 time on a flat course, and with more training, perhaps by the end of the year, I could hope to crack the 3:00 time. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. Fortunately tomorrow is a rest day and it's time for me to let my body recover.
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