i see people say "it's a marathon, not a sprint" a lot.
as i understand it, generally, after events that get described as "it's a marathon, not a sprint", you're hoping to remain upright afterwards. i want to be clear that, at the end of a marathon, you're wasted because you have run at 100% of the speed you can sustain over 26.2 miles.
thank you, nice volunteer at the last race who supported my entire bodyweight and respectfully dragged me out of the finisher's chute in a dignified way
you're looking for some other metaphor. perhaps "it's a hard run, not a race", or maybe "it's a randonnée, not a race". if it's really hard, maybe call it a barkley or a backyard ultra. let's get real into hair-splitting with metaphors because it entertains me, in specific.
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pace percentages are a weird but very useful way to compare running paces. frex, what's called 90% of marathon pace is (2-.9) x marathon pace, 50% is (2-.5) x marathon pace, etc.
as a starting point, every 5% pace you drop, you can run ~2x as long, and the other way around too: every 5% faster, can hold it ~1/2 as long. so 105% MP is approximately half pace, 110% is approximately 10k pace, 115% is approx 5k... it really starts falling apart at distances shorter than a mile.
(note the symmetry isn't there; 80% x (120% MP) won't exactly equal MP. but it's close enough for a first approximation!)
one of the beefiest training runs i did in my last marathon training cycle was 20 miles @ 90% MP. it's neat, because before that run (...and for three or four weeks after...), i wouldn't have been able to run 26 @ MP. and uh, i still haven't run at that pace; i fucked around and found out on race day. but i did run very close to my planned pace.: 26.2 @ 99%! so my point stands. i was upright after that run! for an entire day! i was wrecked the next day, however.
... anyway, my point being. if you make me sprint -- i can't 'sprint'! i don't know how! usain bolt does a different sport from me that happens to use the same equipment! -- if you make me do something that approximates a sprint, it's at something a little faster than 5:00/mile pace. my marathon pace is about ~70% of that. my hardest training run was 60% of that. my daily pace is not even 20% of that.
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five weeks post race and i'm finally getting back into fast running.
No no no no I think you have something here — after doing something my job describes as “a marathon, not a sprint”, I should get to take five weeks off. For recovery.
