Mumbai marathon 2010: The Maths

Borrowing the title of this post from that of a post from Tanvir Kazmi - probably the most prolific running related blogger in the country. The tapering period before a big race in which one has a target time goal is often spent in working out the math of how one is going to get there. Referring back to my previous post on Average pace to achieve target  I need to do an average of 5:48 to complete in below 4:05.  I will try and do the first half between 1:55 and 2:00 and hope that I can still keep a below 6 minute per Km pace in the second half. The average pace this year will have to be 13 seconds per Km faster than last year's average pace which gave me a 4:13 finish. While the familiarity with the course will help the 5 Kms or so over the sealink on the return leg will be a new factor. Of course, by this time next Sunday I will know!

Countdown to Mumbai 2010

With just about 20 days to go for the 2010 edition of Mumbai marathon most runners registered to run either the HM or FM there are in the final stages of their preparation. They would have done their last long run either the alst weekend(26th/27th Dec) or would be planning to do so the coming weekend ie 1st, 2nd or 3rd of January 2010. I fall into the latter category. I was away from Bangalore(at Jungle Lodges and resorts in BR hills) for 4 days and have done little runnig sicne Wednesday 23rd December.  Rather I have been pigging out with 3 heavy meals a day with some deep fried snacks thrown in between lunch and dinner.  Fortunately, for me I have not added too much weight due to this.(I guess by now my metabolism helps me burn off high calorie intake quite efficiently!)  I hope to do a fair amount of running this week: a 9-10K tomorrow, followed by a 12-15K run on 1st of January and then a 32K+ run on Sunday 3rd Jan exactly 2 weeks before the big day in Mumbai.

To hit my target of a sub 4:05 finish and shave 8 minutes from my last year's timing I need to maintain an averge pace of 5:48. Based on my experience of recent training runs in Bangalore this should be quite possible; however I know the weather in Mumbai will be quite a challenge. Also, this year's change in route will bring in a new unknown. While running over the recently opened sealink should be fun I am a bit apprehensive of the effect of the wind on my pace. I am hoping to do the first half in under 2 hours and then push for the second half in about 2:05. This week's runs are crucial to build and maintain the confidence to achieve this.

Importance of average pace to achieve target time

As I have posted before I am  addicted to my Garmin Forerunner 305 since I started using it 2 years ago and feel quite irritated if  either it runs out of battery charge during a run or worse if I forget to wear it for a run. Of all the different display fields available on the device, right from the beginning, I have been relying on the average pace reading to try and adjust my pace(usually to speed up) to hit the target time. And now as I focus on improving my FM timing  I am completely hooked onto the average pace field on the device.  I have recently changed the display settings on my device to have just 3 fields on one page: Average Pace, Current Pace and distance so that the Average Pace appears in large font size. In my recent training runs I look at this field on the device every few seconds! I put together the following table to keep in perspective the average pace at which I need to run marathons to achieve my target of 3:45 finish to qualify for Boston over the next few years.

Target FM Time	Average Pace	Target time 1st Half	Target time 2nd Half
4:15	6:02	2:05	2:10
4:10	5:55	2:00	2:10
4:05	5:48	2:00	2:05
4:00	5:41	1:55	2:05
3:55	5:34	1:55	2:00
3:50	5:27	1:50	2:00
3:45	5:19	1:50	1:55

Topically for me Active.com recently published Your Guide to Perfect Pacing recently which has a number of articles by people like Jeff Galloway and Matt Fitzgerald on how to pace one's run to achieve specific time targets. One of them Why you should run negative splits says that one should run 20 to 50% slower than target pace initially. Though this is in line with what books on runnng and experts say, it is  challenging to achieve. Personally I am looking to do a second half that is not too much slower than the first half - just a difference of 5 to 10 minutes. This is not going to be easy . In my only sub 4 hr FM I did the 1st half in about 1:55 and the 2nd half in a little over 2 hours. However, I have started working towards this and the average pace in my daily training runs has gone up. I now classify my training runs by average pace as follows:

Run type	Average Pace(Mins/Km)
Tempo Run	5:05 to 5:15
Fast Run	5:15 to 5:30
Easy Run	5:30 to 5:45
Slow Run	5:45 to 6:15

The above is a shift by about 15 seconds per Km in each band from what I was doing last season. I am hoping to do below 4:05 in Mumbai in Janaury 2010. And between the Bangalore ultra and Mumbai marathon , that is in December 2009, I plan to do at least one progressive run of 30K. That is, the first 10K at easy pace, the second 10K at 10 seconds per Km faster than target pace , that is at 5:38 per Km pace and the last 10K at 5:48 per Km pace.