With Daniels, I find. That your workout paces should always be at the level of the fitness that you are currently in (basically based upon a current race time). If you best VDOT over your last few races is your 40:33 10k, you should be training at the paces for a 51.12 VDOT. Which is basically, E=8:23, MP=7:08, T=6:43. (For Daniel's marathon training you really don't need to worry about I and R pace). Are you confident the 10k was actually a 10k.

If you stick with Daniels plan (specifically his A-Plan) throughout you should know and be confident at what pace you should be able to handle by the time the marathon comes around. If you're training at a VDOT=44 I can see why you are unsure of yourself.

Daniel's offers a lot of long quality workout to build your strength and condifidence. Especially the 13-15 mile MP runs. I followed is A-plan for NYC last year. He has a workout that you perform 3 weeks out from your goal marathon. 15 miles at MP. For me I ran that at 6:59mpm (with 2 miles easy at the beginning and 2.5 miles easy at the end for 19.5 miles total). I ran my marathon at 7:06 mpm. (I went out too fast I believe, 1:29 half). So that workout was spot on. I knew going into the race I could handle around 7:00 mpm for at least 15 miles.

You also try running a half-marathon somewhere before the race. I ran one at week 8 of the 18 week plan. Ran a 1:29:05 so it gave me confidence on here I was. What kind of mileage are you running? (MPW) I averaged around 50 mpw last year.

Since the point of the various workout paces for Daniels is to stress but not over-stress the particular system, I doubt that running slowly given what you're capable of doing does any good. The fastest Daniels stuff is Repeats, and I do a fair amount of those because they set up one's form and makes other workouts and races more efficient. I don't know the nature of your injury, but if you can get threw the speed of Repeats, Tempo runs, the other mainstay of marathon speed training, should be a piece of cake.

So I'd think about the mechanics, because that's where you'd have a breakdown. As someone who had a long stretch of major injuries, I found some slight post-PT adjustments to my form has made all the difference and I've been largely injury-free for about 18 months. If you can't get your mileage up and your speed up, you might want to address the cause of your injury.

Try to get in some Repeats for form purposes. And I never had any recovery issues doing Repeats and Tempos at (or a little faster) than what my current Vdot told me to do.

Take this with a grain of salt because I'm a novice compared to most here, but I'll play devil's advocate and say bite the bullet. You can always back off, no? Of the 3 marathons I ran in the last 2 years, the pace for ## 1 & 2 found me, not the other way around. For the 3d, though, I had a time goal (BQ) and set off exactly at that pace figuring I could ease off if necessary. I wanted to build a 60-second cushion if possible. Well, I found myself at mile 20 exactly on pace but tiring. But I knew from my threshold runs that I could get to the finish line in time and made it by 70 seconds. That was all I had. If I'd started off 10 seconds per mile slower, I don't think I could have made that time up. It's easy today to say "I'll just pick it up with 6 to go" but when you get to that point it's a different game isn't it?

I know blowing up sucks, but you might just have had a crappy day.

(BTW, my 10k PR was a little over 42 and my marathon was 3:20 and my weekly mileage was generally in the mid 40s with a max @ 51 or 52)

quote:<HR>Originally posted by RunnersHigh43:
I agree with Martin...When I hear someone say to run the first 20 conservatively and then see what you have left....I have to laugh. <HR>

Interesting comment. I think Pfitzinger (Advanced Marathoning) suggests the conservative approach for the first 20 and then test your limits.

Edited to add: I re-read the book and I misinterpreted what he said about the first 20 mile. He said to go out a little slower than MP for the first mile and then run at a relaxed pace, paying attention to pace from miles 13 to 20. Then assess what you have left and push your limits for the final 6.2.

http://This message has been edited by tigger (edited Jul-24-2007).