Flashback Friday: Signed, Sealed, Delivered and Strategicalized

It's official. Last night, I registered for the Buckeye Half Marathon (Sept. 13) and the Akron Marathon (Sept. 26). The race directors are super awesome and offer a discount to those who run both. I just saved $15! But before all that, I hit the track for some 800s. Here is the statistical rundown:

• Intervals: 9 x 800 meters
  
• Goal pace: Sub-3:45 per interval (7:33 per mile)
  
• Fastest Lap (1): 3:24.41 (6:50 per mile)
  
• Slowest Lap (9): 3:42.97 (7:27 per mile)
• Average pace: 3:36.71 (7:15 per mile)
  
• Total distance: 8.5 miles

[Drunkard's note: Total distance includes one mile warm up, 400-meter recovery laps and one mile cool down.]

My secret goal was to run all my intervals at sub-3:40, which netted a FAIL-FAIL on the final two laps, resulting in one of my least favorite occurrences: my final lap was my slowest lap. And similarly annoying was my first lap being my fastest lap. That's like two more FAILs! Oh well.

Back Talk
Wherein your advice gets appropriated as my own idea.

Mike at Running Is Funny shows his age-old wisdom when he told me how I should approach the Buckeye Half Marathon: "Forget the time. Run the first five miles as if they were the first five of your marathon. Run the second five at or just under 9:00 pace. Run the last 5-K at your best possible pace and pass as many laggards as you can."

Answer: Mike is wise because I agree with him. This was exactly the idea I came up with last night as I pondered my options. The only missing ingredient was to make sure I attempt the negative split. So, this was mostly exactly my idea.

As I was researching optimal negative split strategies (here and here), I have come to the conclusion that I will start the marathon at 9:21-9:26 per mile for the first 10 miles, speed up to my goal pace at 9-9:10 per mile for the second 10 miles and go all out for the final 10-K. This projects to a half marathon split of 2:01:28-2:02:49 and a 20-mile split of 3:03:30-3:06:00. In this worst case scenario, I would have to cover that final 10-K in 53:59 (8:41 per mile). I can do that.

As this is a half a marathon, I will half my marathon strategy as Mike suggests. I will run the first five miles no slower than 47:10, the second five miles at less than 45:50 (10-mile split: 1:31:45-1:33:00) and kill the final 5-K. I would like to forget about time, but my goal is to break four hours in the marathon. I figure I should break two hours at the half (a little half-wisdom). I need that motivation.

Well, that's enough race obsession for this week. Happy Hour is nearly upon us, teammates. Have a finely brewed weekend and good luck to you racers. Run well and drink well. Cheers!