SPEED - 10 miles with 3 x 2 mi , 0.5mi rest

SPEED - 10 miles with 3 x 2 mi , 0.5mi rest

Challenging speedwork run for marathon distsance, with 2 mile intervals with 0.5 mile rest in between. Did it on my normal rolling hill 10 mile Saratoga loop to get used to the hills.

It was harder than I expected - I was hoping I'd dip into the 6:40s for a lot of them, but that was too optimistic, and I think I ended up around 6:55 pace on average (hard to tell due to the hills).

Here are the splits:

#1:
6:53 (1ft), 6:43 (-23ft), HR 142,154

#2:
6:51 (9ft), 6:57 (-4ft), HR 147,153

#3:
7:11 (31ft), 6:56 (-50ft), HR 139,152

Average 6:55/mile


I was surprised at how hard it felt to get my HR up, but the averages look about right - I was topping out at about 158-160 HR at the end of the 2nd mile, so those are the averageHRs above for the miles.

I looked up online as to how fast a lot of people are running their marathons in the 3-hr range, and turns out they're running them at surprisingly high HRs. Almost everyone said they ran at 85% of maximal HR, which for me translates to 183 max HR x 0.85 = 157 (!!). I'm actually certain that this will be too high for me given I ran my 5k at 160 HR for mile 1 and that hurt like heck, but I was surprised at how hard folks are cranking it out there. Nobody mentioned running at 80-85% or lower.

I feel that starting the 1st half of the race from 145-150 will be a good strategy, and then see if I can hold 150-160 for the rest of the way, but I'll tune that up as I get closer.

Interestingly, I rarely do these 1,2, and 3 mile 'marathon-distance' intervals, and they are definitely interesting. For sure, I don't feel them targeting my 5k-type leg speed, which is noticeable on my tempo runs which don't feel like my legs or cardio are particularly amping up, especially compared to 400s & 800s hard intervals. However, for sure, the speed on my long run has gotten a lot better, in particular, my aerobic pace speed where my legs are loping along loosely and I'm not tensing up - that used to be over 8:30/mile, but now for sure it's near the 7:30/mile range.

I doubt my 5k speed has increased much though - I would be curious to run an all out 5k now, but I'm afraid I would strain my leg somehow, as I haven't been running sub 6-min miles at all for 3 months now!


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