Pacing has always been a difficult thing for me. The Garmin Forerunner 205 the I got last Christmas has helped somewhat with that, but the benefit that I have gotten from it has been purely prophylactic, as I still cannot gauge appropriate training paces without it. Those who are sufficiently attuned to their bodies to hold a pace range based solely upon perceived effort are to be envied.
As I ramp up my training in order to take my running to a new level, I find that the fine gradients of pace with which I am now working are quite difficult to lock into & hold. A good example of that is yesterday morning, when I set out to run 10 miles at marathon pace as part of a 14-15-mile training run. I went out too fast as usual, but quickly reined in my pace to between 8:45 & 8:50, which is just what I will be shooting for at Kiawah. Yet I was not prepared for the difficulty of making a physical distinction between an 8:25 pace & and 8:45 pace, & as a result kept ramping up the pace despite my better efforts to keep it modest & my frequent glances at the Garmin.
As I ran lap after lap around the mall at Furman (one of the flattest training courses available to me in the neighborhood), my pace kept inching up: 8:40; 8:38; 8:36; 8:35. By 6 miles, it had become clear that my MP run had become more of a steady-state or long tempo workout; but I decided to hang on just the same & get the 10 miles in at that pace. As I often do when dealing with the rigors of marathon training, I reasoned that I have a choice: to feel bad now or feel bad in mile 22 of a marathon. I chose to feel bad now.
So I kept pushing: harder & harder, until my cumulative pace got down to 8:30. Then I hung on, for 2.5 more miles, until my watch turned over at 10 miles for the segment. I was tired, but near the end of the segment I found that despite my fatigue, I could still keep my form. Sweet. Perhaps I really am becoming proficient at running.
Still, I can tell that pace is going to be a problem unless I can make some headway with in during the next 4 weeks. I did make some progress with one aspect of pacing today, however, as I was able to make a much-needed recovery run today at a real recovery pace (10:07 -- on the high end of the McMillan calculator range) instead of my usual 9:30-9:45 spent obsessing over going too slow. All I needed was a little something to flush the waste out of my muscles, & it appears to have worked.
