Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Mile Pace Analysis Boston V Cleveland

First, I want to thank everyone who posted or e-mailed encouraging words. I know I should be happy with a new personal record in Cleveland, and I am. Thanks for pointing out that I need to stop dwelling on the negative.

And an additional thanks to those of you who read the title and did not immediately close your browsers. I thought it would be interesting to compare my mile by mile pace for the two races, as represented by the chart below.



At first look, I the races have remarkably similar profiles. In both, I was hanging around the low 7 minute, high 6 minute area through around mile 15 (far too fast to sustain), then slowing and cruising into the finish with whatever I had left. You can see the effect of the Newton Hills and Heartbreak in Boston, in miles 17 through 21. The Cleveland pace for those miles did not drop off nearly as much. In both races, miles 23, 24, and 25 were almost identical, with Boston slower by only 1 second, 2 seconds, and 7 seconds respectively.

What do I take from this?
  • I went out too fast again in Cleveland, and didn't leave anything in the tank for the end.
  • I need to settle into a reasonable pace early.
  • I need to put in more training miles. Specifically, I need to do a few more long runs, and pick up the pace for the last few miles to train myself to run faster on tired legs.
  • I should not have blindly followed the 3:10 pace group in Cleveland. I should have trusted my own time keeping and backed off when the pacer was taking us on 6:40, 6:51, and 6:55 miles All but one of the first eight miles were well under the 7:15 pace we should have been keeping.
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In other news, I have registered for my first ultra-marathon, the Buckeye 50k. This will be a lovely 31 mile jaunt along the Buckeye Trail in the middle of July. Let's all hope it's a really hot and muggy day! Sounds absolutely fabulous.

1 comment:

solarsquirrel said...

You are gonna LOVE the BT50k. I'll be out there cheering for everyone - and I'm so loud you'll hear me during the whole race!