For marathoners with a specific goal finish time, it’s essential to find a balance between going out too fast and maintaining a pace that’s fast enough to achieve the goal time.
In the weeks leading up to race day, having a prediction of whether or not you’re on track to handle your marathon pace can be helpful, according to Brant Stachel, a USATF-certified endurance coach.
Brant Stachel suggests a different workout that can provide a more accurate prediction than Yasso 800s, which is based on the idea that the time of your 800-meter repeats in minutes and seconds equates to the time in hours and minutes of your marathon.
This workout involves testing your marathon pace in a long run, about three weeks before race day, to finish feeling like you could manage that pace for a few more hours.
A good rule of thumb for keeping steady at marathon effort is to stick to about a 5 or 6 on a scale of 1 to 10 for rate of perceived exertion, with 10 being all-out effort, so you should be able to say a sentence or two for most of the effort.
Stachel emphasizes that the most important aspect of this workout is to focus on effort, not necessarily pace, as runners often feel tempted to try and run a specific pace, but in reality, your times vary based on factors like terrain, weather, and late-race fatigue, such as race fatigue.
The workout consists of three parts: a warm-up, a long run at marathon effort, and a cool-down, with specifics including a warm-up for 20 to 30 minutes at an easy pace.
- 90 to 100 minutes at marathon effort, about 5 RPE
- Cool down for 20 to 30 minutes at an easy pace
This workout is long enough to test pacing control and fueling, but it’s not so long that you can’t recover from it before the starting line, they say.
You can also add a slightly shorter version of this workout to the beginning of your marathon build to get an idea of your current fitness level, doing 60 to 70 minutes at marathon effort about two to four weeks into your build as part of your weekend long run.
By focusing on what you’re capable of doing and using this workout to predict your marathon time, you can stay confident and prepared for race day, and the excitement of the event and the energy of the crowds can then help carry you through to the finish line, helping you manage your boundaries and mental endurance.
