Mastering Your Training Paces: Goal Pace vs. Current Pace Listen up, runners! Once you’ve mapped out your training plan and laid out the structure of your mileage, the absolute most important step to take is making sure you are starting out at the correct intensity. In my early coaching days and in the first edition of the Hansons Marathon Method, I almost exclusively talked about "Goal Pace". But as we’ve grown and analyzed more data, it's become clear that starting your training block exactly at your goal pace isn't always the smartest move, especially if you haven't run a marathon in a few years. Let’s break down the critical differences between Goal Pace and Current Pace, and how you should use them to have your best race day yet. The Trap of the "Goal Pace"Goal pace is the pace you ultimately want to sustain on race day, and ideally, it's where we want your fitness to be during the last month of your training plan. If you are an experienced runner looking to shave just a few minutes off your personal best (say, going from a 3:00 to a 2:57 marathon), setting your workouts to your goal pace right away might only change your splits by a few seconds per mile. That's a highly manageable jump. But here is where runners get into trouble: if you are trying to take massive chunks of time off your personal best—like going from a 4:00 to a 3:30 marathon—jumping straight into goal pace can send you right over the edge. Think about it: if you set your early workouts to a 3:30 marathon goal pace before your body is ready, you might be running your marathon-pace workouts faster than your current half-marathon pace. Your speed work could suddenly be faster than what you can currently run for a 5K! This is completely unsustainable and puts you behind the eight ball from day one. Similarly, be careful with race equivalency calculators. Plugging a recent 5K time into a calculator to get a marathon equivalent gives you a great 30,000-foot view. However, it often grossly overestimates your current marathon fitness. Treat those calculator times as an end-goal or a ceiling to approach as you get race-specific, not as the paces for your first few weeks of training. Embracing Your "Current Pace"For the first four to five weeks of your training plan, you need to shift your focus to your Current Pace. This is your actual, baseline fitness right now. By using your current fitness, you ensure you don't overtrain early on. But how do we find it if the calculators don't line up? Use Recent Race Data: This is your most relevant workable data. If you just ran a summer 5K or 10K series, use that to dictate your half-marathon training. If you are moving up to the full marathon, a recent half-marathon gives you pretty good baseline information, though you should take it with a grain of salt as it might still slightly overestimate your full marathon fitness. Make sure your tune-up races align with the specific training and strength work you've been doing. Course Comparisons: If you're switching from a flat course to a hilly one, compare your past equal-distance races. You can use tools like findmymarathon.com to see what an equal effort on a flat course (like Chicago or Glass City) equates to on a hilly course (like Boston) to guide your expected current paces. The Six-Minute Test: If you've had a long layoff and don't know where you stand, try a six-minute test. Essentially, you run as far as you can in six minutes to extrapolate reliable data about your current fitness level. Bridging the Gap: Progressing from Current to Goal PaceYou don't want to stay at your current pace forever, but you have to earn the right to progress. Do not jump to a faster pace level just for the sake of jumping! You need to wait until you have the data to support the move. As your coach, I recommend waiting four to six weeks before adjusting your paces—about four weeks for consistently training, experienced runners, and at least six weeks for newer runners. Spending an extra two weeks at your current pace allows you to truly maximize the physical adaptations of your current fitness level, which is incredibly beneficial. During this time, look at your aerobic efficiency and aerobic decoupling metrics. Track how efficient your heart rate is staying on your long, easy runs and whether you are seeing big heart rate jumps over longer workouts. You can easily pull this data from Garmin Connect apps, Coros dashboards, or a paid Strava subscription. Once your efficiency data, a new six-minute test, or a tune-up race proves your fitness has improved, you can confidently plug those new projected times into your training log (like Final Surge) and march closer to your goal pace. Set yourself up for success by starting in the right spot. Honor where your fitness is today, stay healthy, and you'll be hitting those big goal paces when it actually matters 6 to 8 weeks down the road. Keep the train rolling! LHR Community: https://lukehumphreyrunning.com/...
続きを読む
一部表示
22 分
21 分