Here are my splits from the Vermont City Marathon this past Sunday. I did not get a split at mile 26, so the last split is actually for 1.2 miles or around thereabouts. Also, miles 7 and 11 did not get clicked until I was a bit past them as I was busy sucking down goo and getting water as I went by, which means that those two miles are a bit long and miles 8 and 12 are a bit short. You can also add a bit over a minute to my split at mile 15, since I stopped my watch while I was in a port-a-john. Here are the splits, which do a good job of reflecting the hills:
- 6:54
- 6:18
- 6:23
- 6:05
- 7:06
- 6:47
- 7:01
- 6:56
- 6:48
- 6:15
- 6:52
- 6:42
- 7:13
- 6:28
- 7:04
- 6:58
- 7:00
- 7:00
- 6:58
- 7:10
- 7:13
- 7:10
- 7:28
- 7:22
- 7:37
- 8:01
All in all, I would say that effort wise I ran a remarkably consistent race. I was not trying to prove anything, was running right around the time that I expected that I would run, and didn’t really start to slow down until mile 23. I never hit the wall, and I had a nice sprint finish that was cut short only by the fact that I didn’t realize how little I had left or else I would have started earlier. The only reason that I did not pass more people at the finish was because there weren’t more people to pass.
Great job on your marathon. I always admire people who can run long distances like you can, especially with that consistency. In my eyes, really amazing.
Do you make a conscious effort toward consistency or does it just kind of happen?
I have a good sense of pace and of what I can do at different exertion levels on any given day. So, I would say it is a mixture of both.
The biggest thing I would say is practice, though. I have been running for a long time, and I know how my body feels and when it can go fast or slow. The preparation makes it so that I don’t really need to make a conscious effort at the time.
[...] As a test to what I am going to be doing this Autumn, I decided to try running a 5k with only 3 days of rest. That was an experiment, and I still took a lot of time off last week. I only ran about 13 miles total (which includes 2 weekend runs) and this week I will probably only run in the mid 20s for mileage. [...]
[...] will be running two marathons this fall, I wanted to see how quickly I could bounce back. I ran the Vermont City Marathon three days ago, and while active have not actually worked out since then. I wanted to see what a [...]