Last Thursday we did a timed run of 5K (roughly). This was to help predict our half marathon times and to figure our target paces for different lengths of intervals and runs.
If you attended last week and got your target pace level from me on Sunday, you can look up your level on the chart I’ve uploaded. You might want to save this document somewhere as your level might change over the course of training (ie. go down over time) and also you’ll want to refer to it for certain workouts.
Target Pace Levels (taken from Matt Fitzgerald’s book “Brain Training for Runners”
There are a few ways of keeping track of your pace. One is to run on the treadmill and see how each pace “feels” and learn that feeling in the body. Another way is to run on a 400 m track (you’ll notice numbers in brackets, that is the 400 m time (ie. one lap of a track) at a given pace. You could also run a set or known distance as well (ie. drive for 3 KM and then time yourself running that distance for your 3K pace…) There are devices such GPS and smart phones (although accuracy is questionable sometimes) or the Nike + system with shoe insert and an iPod nano that can give you your instantaneous pace and average pace, to name a few options. Some people in your group may have these devices and you could ask them while out in run, I’m sure they won’t mind! Lastly, I believe that a heart race monitor that has a foot pod option that when you run with the foot pod on, records distance and therefore can determine your pace!
NOTE: If you want to repeat or do the course we did on Thursday Feb 10th, we started in front of Carmello’s Lingerie shop in the Spectacle Building and run all the way to the dead end of tantalus road, then on the return did a side branch down Newport Ridge Road (down and back). We will repeat this course in 4-5 weeks to assess our fitness gains.
To get your target pace level, send me a recent 5K (by doing the run outlined above, for example) or 10K time (where you were running pretty much at top speed) and I will send you the level you are currently at and your “predicted” half marathon time, assuming you were fit enough, right now, to run a half. Remember that with training, this changes.
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