This Saturday, I shall be attempting my first ultra marathon, the 56km Two Oceans Marathon. I’m feeling fairly confident, but good race results and solid training allows me to be confident.
Some of the thoughts I have floating around in my mind:
- The last 14km are notoriously hilly, and that’s after running a marathon. How am I going to handle that?
- Going out too fast is a worry, as the first 28km is nearly flat. However, since negative splits are nearly impossible, it’s important to go out fast. So what pace do I run at?
- With that said, what time do I aim for? The best time I could hope for would be a 4:10 (4:27 min/km), so realistically I’m hoping to get under 4:20 (4:39 min/km). With a fairly hard second half, and it being my first ultra, predicting is hard.
- Wind. The infamous south-easter is well known in running circles for make life difficult when running down Chapmans peak.
- 56km!
As far as pacing is concerned, I got emailed this wonderful excel file* which gives you splits to aim for and is based on profile on the course. To achieve a 4:20, here are my target splits:
| Distance | Time (Split) | Pace (min /km) |
| 10km | 45:36 | 4:34 |
| 21km | 1:34:56 | 4:31 |
| 42km | 3:12:22 (1:37:26) | 4:35 |
| 56km | 4:20:00 (1:07:38) | 4:39 |
To prove that negative splits are difficult on this course, here’s a graph of my goal pace per kilometre (click for a larger version):
That would make a first half time of 2:06:30, and then a second half 7 minutes slower of 2:13:30.
Ok, so those are some of my thoughts, with it only being 4 days away, I’m starting to get nervous, and when I get nervous, I start searching for numbers to calm me, is that clear here?
*Attie Anderson developed the sheet based on splits run by Elizabeth McCaul and Garry Wilford
Add New Comment
Thanks. Your comment is awaiting approval by a moderator.
Do you already have an account? Log in and claim this comment.
Add New Comment
Trackbacks