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comment by WanderingEng
WanderingEng  ·  2347 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: An Analysis of Participation and Performance at the Berlin Marathon, 2017

Thanks, that was an enjoyable read. It's neat how many first timers there are across the age groups. Pacing is something I care about, and it seems like pacing is good.





wasoxygen  ·  2346 days ago  ·  link  ·  

The graph of splits was interesting; I am impressed that even 12-14% of finishers have a negative split.

I like the idea of splitting the marathon into two parts of equal effort: a 20-miler and "the assertive strain" of a 10K.

WanderingEng  ·  2344 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Thanks, based on my training runs so far, I like that, too. I've done one 20 mile run and have 22 miles on the agenda for tomorrow.

I really agree with not psyching oneself out, too. On that 20 mile run, I started to feel wiped about mile 9, much earlier than other runs. It was my first time going up one hill I knew was there but hadn't run. The entire rest of the run was a struggle. I ran it a week later (hill again at mile 9, 13.5 mile total run) and felt a million times better. The first time, I wasn't prepared mentally and when I got to it convinced myself it would be horrible. The second, I just took it slow.

I'm already worried about my mental math on race day, knowing I'll hit 3-4 miles and still have a run longer than my longest training run ahead of me. I'm already good at ignoring my watch (except for heart rate alarms; it's set so high that if it goes off, I need to back off asap). I hope I can ignore myself.

I can run 20 miles. I can run a 10K.