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Saturday, July 19, 2008

Durham Quarter Marathon: Preview

In one week, I'll be participating in the Durham 1/4 Marathon. It takes place in Oshawa, starting along a really nice trail through the heart of Oshawa, and finishing on the shores of Lake Ontario. It's so nice, I might even forget I'm in "the 'shwa"! ;)

It is a weird distance... 10.5K instead of the usual 10K. And I'm having a very hard time with pacing for this.

Based on the McMillan Running Calculator and my best 1/2 marathon time of 1:53:55, my 10K pace should be around 5:07/km. I have one previous 10K result of 5:12/km.

But there are a few big caveats...

1) All my best times (1/2, 10K, and 5K) are from winter... ice, slush, extra layers, all slowed me down
2) I've lost 10-15 pounds since those times

But...

3) I'm only about a few weeks back into running after taking 4 months off with an injury
4) This will be my first ever racing doing 10 and 1s (walk breaks)

All of this has be really scratching my head as to how I should pace this.

The course is interesting too... the first half is gradually downhill, the second half is more or less flat. So the first half time should be less than the second half.

I'm thinking 5:00/km (52:30 finish) will be best case scenario. I'll do my best to keep close to that, even with the breaks. I might pay for it in the last few kilometers, but theoretically the walk breaks should keep me fresh for the finish.

Theoretically. :)

1 comment:

iNGRiD said...

How did it go? What was your time??