Well, it’s back to Day 1 of marathon training! Richmond will be my 8th marathon! I can hardly believe that!
Training started nice and gentle with only 3 miles today. Tomorrow has 6+ miles of intervals, though, before 6 am so I’m not so giddy about that… My training buddy and I are trying a plan from Runner’s World this time around. We are trying to break 4:15. Which is insane. It’s especially insane because everything but the speed work days are to be at 11:00 minute miles or slower!
After spending so much time trying to run faster, we are having a REALLY tough time going slower. Like, really tough. I understand the reason but I’m not sure how successful we will be with this. Since my pace naturally slows so much during the marathon, I don’t know how training at this pace is going to help me “learn” the correct pace. Maybe that’s “old school” thinking, though. Maybe the physiological benefits of not trying to continually kill my legs will reap great benefits on race day. I’m highly intrigued by how this will all unroll.
Needless to say, if this works, I’ll be over the moon!
Have you ever tried a plan from RW or spend the majority of your time at a much slower pace? How did that work for you?
Unexpected Runner 
All the best with training for #8! It is hard to stay that slow but runners are notorious for running training runs too fast. I’d say to try to stay on the slow side until you build back some endurance then slowly add in some miles closer to marathon pace.