Thursday, September 24, 2009

Goal Pace Run

Primarily to give myself a break, I decided this mornings 6 miler would be a goal pace run. The first 2 miles were faster than goal pace and I had to keep slowing myself down. The last two kept slipping and I had to speed up. I know I need to practice more goal pace runs so I know that pace in my sleep.

I was wondering, how do others do their goal pace runs and stay on pace? How long do you maintain it for?

At the beginning of my run today, when I had lots of energy, I started thinking about the weekend coming up. I have a 5K race this weekend and was wondering what pace to go for. Last year I ran this course in 25 something (oddly enough I didn't put the race in Buckeye so I have to look up the info and the website race results link is broken), the year before I ran a 24:05. I'll certainly go for a course PR and then I started thinking maybe I should go for a 5K PR. (Remember this is the beginning of my run, have lots of energy,am optimistic and feeling great). Then reality set in and I realized that not only is it a hilly little course but I will have also run 15 miles the day before. So I'll go for a course PR, will run to have fun and get some speedwork in.

Happy Running

2 comments:

sneakersister said...

I actually don't do goal pace runs. This year I've been doing runs faster than goal pace (all of my speed work) and everything else is slower than GP. I did do 5 GP miles at the end of a long run a few weeks ago which was a last minute thing; 10 easy and 5 GP. I have a Garmin so that answers your question of how I stay on pace.

I'd be curious to know how many people do GP runs and how they go about them as well. I just figure I'll run my goal pace in the race if I feel good about my training.

Aron said...

goal pace is hard, but i think its great to know what it feels like an practice it during training. and the fact that you kept having to hold yourself back is a good thing :) i just use my garmin to pace myself during those runs. i try to stay pretty close to the pace.. its good to teach yourself to hold back to the pace when trying to go faster too.