Marathon Race Day Pace

When Rachel and I signed up for the marathon last year we decided on a time that we'd like to finish under. We decided that we could consistently run/walk 15 minute miles for the duration of the 26.2 miles, bringing us to a finishing time of 6 hours 30 minutes. Doable. Obviously not a time we felt we could brag about, but we were running a marathon and no one could downplay that, no matter our finishing time.

One of our last training runs last year was a 26 miler at the beach. We started in Santa Monica, ran down 13 miles, turned around and came back. When we got to the 13 mile mark we decided that if we were going to run 26 miles, we may as well run a full marathon and get in the 0.2. We finished that training run in 6 hours 22 minutes.  So of course we increased our goal time to beat our training day time.

They say that you're not supposed to have a time goal for your first marathon. You're main goal should be to finish, but if you've ever met us Miller girls, then you know. We are stubborn. So our goal stayed and we ended up finishing the marathon in 6 hours 15 minutes.

So this year I have decided to make a goal for myself. I would like to finish the marathon in under 6 hours. I know that the chance of obtaining this goal is not very high because 1. my training this year has not gone very well and 2. I've been having some issues with my legs, feet and knee this time around. But I'd still like to try.

I've already come to terms with the fact that this may not be my year to reach the goal. And I'm okay with that. I feel like finishing at this point is something to celebrate by itself. But still, it's nice to have something to reach for, something to work towards.

So, after talking to Rachel about my goal she found a marathon guide, which you can enter your goal finish time and it provides you with a printout band for your race day. It has a mile by mile guide that shows you what time you need to be at each mile in order to finish by your goal.

My goal? 5 hours 59 minutes. Hey, when I say under 6 hours, I literally mean under 6 hours. No matter if it's by minutes or seconds. My bracelet looks like this:

Marathon Pace: 5:59:00

1 - 0:13:41

2 - 0:27:23

3 - 0:41:04

4 - 0:54:46

5 - 1:08:27

6 - 1:22:09

7 - 1:35:50

8 - 1:49:32

9 - 2:03:13

10 - 2:16:55

11 - 2:30:37

12 - 2:44:18

13 - 2:58:00

HM - 2:59:30

14 - 3:11:41

15 - 3:25:23

16 - 3:39:04

17 - 3:52:46

18 - 4:06:27

19 - 4:20:09

20 - 4:33:50

21 - 4:47:32

22 - 5:01:14

23 - 5:14:55

24 - 5:28:37

25 - 5:42:18

26 - 5:56:00

Like I said, I'm not sure if it's going to happen and if it doesn't there's no loss, but you don't know if you don't try, so I'm going to try.