Monday, July 18, 2011

Race Picture and New Training Times

Well, I sucked it up and bought a race picture from yesterday's ZOOMA Half. I really like this one, even though I look downright grim in the face. But can you blame me? It was HOT. You can read my race report here.


They claim this was taken at mile five, but I don't remember seeing a photographer at mile five. The only one I saw on the course was just after mile 12, when I started booking it. And that wall behind me, and the brightness (I was still in shade at mile five), also lead me to believe they got the placement of the photographer wrong.

I was also curious what my time in this race would have (theoretically) been had the weather been perfect (perfect for me being defined as about 60 degrees or cooler with overcast skies). And lo and behold! I found a calculator online that does just that. It's from a coaching company called Premier Coaching and you get to it here.

I had to fool around with it some, as when you enter a time it plugs it in as if you ran that time in the ideal conditions, and the directions about subtracting were confusing. So I just entered times until I got mine to show up under 85 degrees (finish temp yesterday was 86, so I rounded down). Here's what it came up with:

1:52:19!

I'm very happy about that. And since my training runs are mostly done at 5:30 a.m., when temperatures here in Colorado are much closer to the ideal, and since the marathon I'm training for (Top of Utah) is mostly downhill and won't be run at 86 degrees, I used that adjusted time to compute my new training paces using the McMillan Running calculator.

Not sure if this would be kosher if I had a real coach, but since I don't, I'm going with my own gut and how I felt during the race (which was great). Using that time, the calculator predicts a marathon finish of 3:56:53. That's not fast enough for Boston, but it's a nine-minute improvement over what my Bolder Boulder time predicted.

Getting there, getting there.....and a girl can (and will) dream!

7 comments:

  1. I am certain that this was mile 5 as I was still smiling in my photo (same cones in my shots)! Look at those calves, keep working it, girl!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. interesting about that calculator and the temperature..I will check it out...I am dealing with the heat here and it is not fun. makes it hard to train and to race. by 6 am it is hot here these days. I like your picture!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Temperature makes such a difference! Keep your marathon time in mind and start prepping for it, physically and mentally!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Very cool! You still have 8+ weeks of training for TOU and I think the conditions are going to be perfect. Believe in yourself!!! You are going to do amazing. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. You definitely can take a heat allowance when its that hot. Yes you ARE getting there. No doubt!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Those photographers are sneaky. They will come out of no where!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Keep working at it, You can do it! i love those calculators I play with them all the time.

    ReplyDelete