Coming to the end of the first month of training this week, you will begin to incorporate goal pace runs into your regime. Learning to successfully pace yourself during training is crucial to ensure your successful and injury free performance on race day. Through fine-tuning your pace skills, you’ll be able to set goals and monitor your performance more effectively- meaning new personal bests!
Once you have your time goal (you might be aiming to finish the marathon in 3 hours for example) you can determine your average pace per kilometer needed to reach your goal. You can also use a pace calculator by entering the distance of your run and desired finish time in order to determine your pace goal.
To incorporate this into your training, begin by simply running the first portion of your long run at an easy pace. Once you reach the last section, speed up to your goal pace. If you’re training for the half marathon, you might run the last 2km of your usual run at goal pace, or the last 4km if you’re training for the full marathon. This style of running is highly effective in training as you are asking your body to run at goal pace when you are already fatigued, really pushing your endurance!
Learning to pace properly requires some groundwork. Incorporating goal pace running sessions in your training is fantastic to teach patience and restraint in race conditions. By including these sessions into your training now, by race day you will be able to remain calm and consistent rather than getting caught up in the excitement and trying to keep up with the race leaders.
This week’s focus: Run your own race. Try to focus on your own goals, times and personal bests rather than comparing your efforts to your fellow runners.
Make sure you check out our 12 week training plans – available for free for the following distances:
