Training / Marathon target

Ran the Cranleigh 21 miles (and 151 yards) on Sunday as a tester for the London Marathon on 17 April 2005. I unofficially timed myself at 02:29:35 for 21 miles, and my official time was 2:30:28 at the finish, in 38th position. According to the calculators, this suggests that a marathon in the window 03:10:00 — 03:20:00 should be possible. Not completely sure what I’m going to aim for as my target yet. Other people’s experience suggests that the calculators are always wrong and you do increasingly worse than the prediction as the distance increases. This would seem to be bourne out by the fact that my recent Reading Half time would suggest a faster marathon in the window 03:00:00 — 03:10:00.

However, I suspect that I haven’t got the discipline to go off at the 7:30/mile that I probably ought to for a good even–paced run. I will probably end up going off for sub–3:10 glory at about 7:00/mile, gradually dying throughout the second half, like most people do, and absent a catastrophic blow–up, finishing somewhere in the 03:20:00 — 03:40:00 bracket. But I am definitely heartened by the Cranleigh result. Worst case scenario is that I have to walk the last 5 miles at 3.5mph, which suggests that a respectable sub–4 hour finish is still looking likely.

So I think my realistically achievable public target should be 03:15:00 — 03:30:00, with a secret back–of–the–mind, don’t–tell–anyone target of sub–3:10, should I have an really good day on the 17th.