I have been debating how to pace myself for the half marathon on Sunday. Since this will be my first half marathon (my first of any kind of race actually), my main goal is to finish. I have been training mostly keeping my heart rate below 150 (70% Karvonen Method, 78% simple). I may start off there, maybe going up to 158 (75% Karvonen, 81% simple) as the race progresses. I am already planning on alternating between running and brisk walking. I guess I will see how I feel and make the decision on the run. Part of me would like to get a good time, but part of mee sees this event more as a training run, and a stepping stone to a full marathon. I am still working on building an aerobic base for running. My aerobic speed has been slowly increasing, and I have been able to maintain slightly faster speeds while keeping my heart rate below 150. Heart monitors are really cool! We will see. At least it is supposed to be nice weather! Look at the times for the runners last year in my age group, I will likely be near the bottom (but at least not dead last). And there should be plenty of people from other age groups behind me. Since I have never run one of these, I have no idea what to expect. Maybe I will go faster than I think. I am guesstimating a finish time somewhere between 2:30 and 3:00. But who knows. Maybe I will find a rhythm, and flow with the other runners, and finish faster. While I would like to finish closer to 2:30, I may finish closer to 3:00. But then I really only started running about a month and a half ago.

Posted by Rob in Running on September 15th, 2006 |