Speed Work and Marathon Training

I had a pretty good speed session today. Arguably the best I've had all summer. My goal was to run 6 X 400 at less than 2:10. My splits were very good:

Lap 1: 1:57
Lap 2: 1:57
Lap 3: 2:01
Lap 4: 2:08
Lap 5: 2:07
Lap 6: 2:11

The first two splits went very well. Although the intensity level was high for me, I did not really feel it. At lap 3, I felt some stress, but I was not working too hard. Laps four and five were a little tougher. Lap 6 reminded me that I had essentially reached my limit for the day.

While running my 400 repeats, I began thinking about how hard it would be for me to maintain that pace for a marathon. I reminded myself that the purpose of today's activity was not to train for a super fast marathon pace, but to build my aerobic capacity so that I could maintain a pace of 11:00/mile for the entire race. (Actually, I would be pleased with a 12 minute mile since my fastest marathon in recent years was something like 12:45/mile.)

Having run 9 marathons in the past 4 years, I know that I can complete the distance. Now I'm trying to complete the distance in around 5 hours. This time I'm attacking the race on two fronts. They are endurance and speed. For the endurance part of my training, I am running long every other week. I will run four long runs of 20 miles or more. Last week's long run was 17 miles. On August 6th, I will run 20 miles. That will be followed by three additional runs of 23, 26, and 28 miles between then and early October.

Speed sessions will continue to include 400 meter repeats once a week and mile repeats or races on non-long run weekends. I'm hoping to bring my magic mile speed test down to 8:30 before the marathon. With that mixture of training, I should be able to come close to 5 hours in the Atlanta Marathon. Of course, that won't happen if the weather is too hot or the course is too hilly.