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weekend run: "magic mile" time trial
Magic Mile is aJeff Galloway thing, used to calculate what pace one should be training at, as well as what pace one can expect to run various distances under race conditions. Normally I work in km, but for this I put everything into miles on RunKeeper. 1 mile slow jogging warm up, then 1 mile "as fast as you can", then a few minutes walking to recover and running to make up the distance.
I set up run-walk intervals in RunKeeper, aiming for somewhere between 11 and 12 minutes for the "magic mile". In fact I did it in 10:36, which pleased me immensely (translates to a 6:35 min/km pace).
Using Galloway's calculator, this suggests my "racing time" for a 5k would be about 34.5 minutes and for a marathon just over 6 hours. Which won't win me any prizes but isn't a terrible beginner-marathon time.
The calculator also suggests a "training pace" for the long weekend runs which seems extraordinarily slow - slower than I've been managing, and implying a lot more walking and a lot less running. I think the theory here is that the long runs are meant to feel really slow - they're about building up stamina, not speed, and doing so in a very conservative way to prevent injury and increase recovery time. Like walking breaks themselves, it feels very odd, but it is consistent. (There is a very telling review of Galloway's 5k app which goes "well, I did all this stuff that seemed like it was going really backwards, and I did shave loads of time off my 5k but I still don't really agree with it." It's like the reviewer hasn't considered that maybe they got faster because of the bits they disliked.)
The "magic mile" is repeated in the marathon training programme every few weeks, I guess to allow adjustments. I'm hoping that I'm still on a beginner's upward curve and I'll be faster next time.
I had a hunt around for interval-timing apps for these long slow runs I'm planning, and found Simple Interval Timer which does what it says, makes audible beeps even while I'm listening to other apps and will be rather more bearable for long slow runs with lots of walking breaks than RunKeeper-voice saying Next Interval.
I set up run-walk intervals in RunKeeper, aiming for somewhere between 11 and 12 minutes for the "magic mile". In fact I did it in 10:36, which pleased me immensely (translates to a 6:35 min/km pace).
Using Galloway's calculator, this suggests my "racing time" for a 5k would be about 34.5 minutes and for a marathon just over 6 hours. Which won't win me any prizes but isn't a terrible beginner-marathon time.
The calculator also suggests a "training pace" for the long weekend runs which seems extraordinarily slow - slower than I've been managing, and implying a lot more walking and a lot less running. I think the theory here is that the long runs are meant to feel really slow - they're about building up stamina, not speed, and doing so in a very conservative way to prevent injury and increase recovery time. Like walking breaks themselves, it feels very odd, but it is consistent. (There is a very telling review of Galloway's 5k app which goes "well, I did all this stuff that seemed like it was going really backwards, and I did shave loads of time off my 5k but I still don't really agree with it." It's like the reviewer hasn't considered that maybe they got faster because of the bits they disliked.)
The "magic mile" is repeated in the marathon training programme every few weeks, I guess to allow adjustments. I'm hoping that I'm still on a beginner's upward curve and I'll be faster next time.
I had a hunt around for interval-timing apps for these long slow runs I'm planning, and found Simple Interval Timer which does what it says, makes audible beeps even while I'm listening to other apps and will be rather more bearable for long slow runs with lots of walking breaks than RunKeeper-voice saying Next Interval.