A number of marathons scheduled in the next few months, as well as 5K and 10K races almost every weekend. One program that I used for running a marathon was the Meyer’s System where the distance was divided into five mile segments with a different pace in each segment. I have tried it with needing a time to qualify for the Boston Marathon and in pacing runners in a marathon. I have even used it with walkers that wanted to break seven hours in a marathon. It has worked each race with the finish time within a couple of minutes. The key to using the system is that a runner needs to know their pace, or how fast are you running.
While one important segment of training for a marathon is being able to run a long distance there should be a training period sometime during the week to work on knowing your pace. It helps to try it on a few 5K or 10K races to see if you are learning what the pace is that you are running. These workouts are done on a quarter mile track to get the best results.
An experienced runner knows the time that they will run in a race, or at least close to the time, depending on the course, the heat, and the humidity during the race. A beginning runner often enters a race and may get caught up in the crowd of runners and tries to keep up with them right from when the starting gun sounds. It took me a few races to learn the importance of pace before I understood that knowing what my capabilities are, and what my pace is, so that I could finish the race close to the time I wanted.
