I bought a book by Jeff Galloway a few months ago - How to qualify for Boston. After reading it, I thought it kinda oversold the idea that u can just follow a 30 week plan and qualify. There were some good bits though. One which made sense to me is the magic mile. After a warm up, you run a mile as fast as u can. That time multiplied by 1.3 becomes your fastest potential marathon pace.
I went out for a 6/7 mile run today- lately, as my fitness has increased and I spend more time on the runners world forums, I can't help thinking I'm doing too many junk miles. Especially as upto 10 miles at easy pace is a relatively easy ask for me these days. I tried to go out easy today, but for some reason I kept hitting my marathon pace- a comfort because it felt comfortable but annoying as it showed I wasn't in control. Given my legs were asking for speed, I decided to do a magic mile, but instead of a 10 minute warm up, I had 4 miles, and instead of a track, it was the river path in castle park, which isn't quite a mile long. There were a fair few hazards along the way, mainly dogs and their walkers, and the path wasn't completely flat. I also didn't know quite how to pace a mile, so I may not have reached my potential. Nonetheless I managed it in 7:18. When you multiply that by 1.3, you get 9:29 as a pace per mile. I'm targeting to start at 9:33, so I think we are in the right place here.
Afterwards I struggled to run the rest of the way home, so I stopped after another mile to walk. I'm noticing the tightness in my lower leg again, so I might do a gentle jog later before having a proper stretch.
This workout also got me thinking I should go ahead and race the half marathon on Sunday aiming for sub 1:55...
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