One of the foundations of the Hansons Marathon Method is to build up fatigue so that you start runs on tired legs. The idea is that you are training for the second half of the marathon rather than the first.
After runs of 10, 10, 8 and 11 miles over the last four days I am becoming well acquainted with this concept! Sometimes I go to sleep not being able to imagine starting a workout seven hours later. However a sleep does seem to work wonders and, combined with my new motto "just get out the door and start trotting," I seem to be surviving.
This morning I did my first 8 mile tempo (marathon pace) run. With two miles warm up and 1 mile cool down that was an 11 mile run to get in before 7:30 am. Fortunately, setting my alarm for 5:30 am now seems pretty normal and I was out the door by 6 am. After two miles of gradually speeding up I did eight miles at around 7:10 pace. This felt surprisingly OK at first and then gradually got harder until the last few miles felt like an effort.
According to the McMillan pace calculator I should be able to maintain 7:10 pace for a whole marathon. However past experience tells me that I can't. I am planning to do the training tempo runs at my McMillan marathon pace but when it comes to the real marathon I will start off somewhat slower.
It is well know that your best times are set when you pace a race evenly or even get a negative split. This will be my goal in Chester, starting at a steady 7:45 and hopefully speeding up in the last 10 miles.
But for now I will carry on "getting out the door and trotting."
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