The On/Off Switch

When it comes to pace, I've always said that I have only two: on and off. It seems to me that no matter how I feel, how long I'm running, how much I've run recently or what the weather is like I always run about the same speed. One day I feel like a speed demon, floating on air in perfect 65 degree sunny weather. Another day I wonder if I'm actually moving forward, my legs feeling as if they're made of pure lead and, of course, it's cold and rainy. But somehow, my pace on either day ends up being only seconds more or less than the other day.

Consistency. I guess it's a good thing.

Except when you're trying to run faster.

In my current training (for the NJ Marathon in May), I want to be faster. Abby and I began training together and from the start had a certain goal in mind. (It's running fast enough to get into this pretty well-known race somewhere up in New England.) We didn't talk about it much, usually speaking only in whisper and looking for wood to knock on if we mentioned it. We both felt that if it happened, great. If not, try again another time. No big deal. Despite our slightly complacent attitude, we definitely tried. Only recently, nearing the end of our training, we've realized we may have a shot.

We found a schedule to follow. And we've followed it, basically. We've done tempo runs, we've done long runs, we've done recovery runs, we've done trail runs, we've done track workouts. Despite numerous types of runs with different purposes, we still don't quite understand this whole "pace" thing.

Many schedules or training workouts have you run certain speeds based on your performance in races (5K, 10K, marathon, etc). The track workout that I wanted to do this week was 800m repeats at 20 seconds faster than a 5K pace. Ok, sounds good. Except that the last 5K I did was Race for the Cure in 2005. Running through the tiny streets of Philadelphia with 40,000 of my closest friends, I think I finished in just under an hour. Probably not a good judge of speed for a track workout. (Somehow I don't think that repeats at a 19:30 min/mile pace is productive or possible.)

Still at square one.

Runner's World online has a function that calculates your pace based on a goal time. Great. Plug in 3:40 for a marathon and presto change-o, paces. What we found out was that, by and large, we were doing a pretty good job. Except for one thing- our long runs. The know-all-and-end-all running gurus at Runner's World said that we should be doing our long runs at 9:26-10:39 min/mile.

Huh?

How does doing a 20 miler at 10 min/mile prepare you to run the necessary 8:23 min/mile pace needed in order to finish in 3:40 and qualify?? I just don't get it. I know that you will likely run a little faster on race day. A little faster. Not 2 minutes faster. Or even 1 minute faster. Remember the on/off switch? I've got two paces, not ten. It's a switch, not a dial.

Luckily, I'm not worried that my training paces haven't been exact (or even anywhere close) to what they "should" be. I've felt good- mentally and physically- throughout training. I've never paid close attention to paces in training and I've managed to do just fine. 14 marathons under my belt and my on/off switch is working as good as ever.

While discussing the pace conundrum on our last run, Abby and I determined that if we're "supposed" to do our long runs approximately 2 minutes slower than our goal race pace, based on our last 20 miler two weeks ago, we'll be running 6:43 min/mile in the marathon.

Deena Kastor, watch your back!