The six mile cut-in and other stories

A while back Kevin Sieveright from the club dropped over a box of "Marathon and Beyond" bimonthly publications from the States he had been keeping in his attic. I read an interesting article in one of the them about a pacing strategy for a marathon involving the "six mile cut-in" which recommends starting your marathon at a pace that is 30 seconds per mile slower than your target pace for the first two miles, 20 seconds per mile slower for miles 3 & 4 and 10 seconds per mile slower for miles 5 & 6 and running the final 20.2 miles at target pace.

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For me this advice is the opposite of what I (and most others) instinctively want to do for the first six miles of a marathon - lose all that time for no reason, you got to be kidding me. All you lose is 2 minutes - obviously the target pace for the final 20.2 miles has to include making up these 2 minutes. For example for a 3 hour marathon the average pace over 26.2 miles of 6:52 would have to reduce to 6:46 per mile for the last 20.2 miles to allow for the 6 mile cut-in. I can hear you say "6:52 is difficult enough to maintain and you want me to run 6:46 pace - for the last 20 miles - you're joking right?". Well perhaps if you are thinking this you're not in 3 hour marathon shape (or 3:30/4 hour whatever the case may be). Certainly if you adopt this approach you'd be running against the popular tide - and this is why I think it is one of the best pieces of advice I have read in a long time - because the success rate of the popular tide is not very impressive.

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Think about it - for most races below the marathon distance we warm-up over a few miles with the last few 100 yards at race pace - same as the six mile cut-in (elites can warm-up for the marathon and can therefore do without it). It beats the hell out of stressing about getting on pace during the first 30 seconds of the race - you can relax and enjoy the opening miles and let those around you fight over the square yard of road in front of you. If you find that when you reach target pace you can't sustain it for 20.2 miles, you've lost nothing as it goes without saying that you couldn't have maintained a slightly slower pace (6 seconds per mile for 3 hour marathon pace) for a further 6 miles. This in-race "warm-up" becomes more and more important the longer the distance as it introduces race pace slowly, gets your body gradually used to the effort with a gradual increase in HR. Ever notice that if you go out too fast in the opening miles of a marathon your HR will never recover even if you ease off on the pace? Anyway my opening 6 miles of the race on Saturday will be a six mile cut-in experiment of 1. Now if only I could decide on a target pace!

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In unrelated news Abina continues to amaze me in her continued interest in my well being although the focus is shifting more towards my nutrition strategy.

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"I got you foamy ice creams (sweets) in Aldi" she said to me on Tuesday.

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"They melt in the mouth more easily than the Percy Pigs I got you in Marks and Sparks and they have more carbs".

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Sure enough they did - 80% to the 78% in the Pigs. I'll get her to crew for me yet. although....... .

Things turned more sinister last night when she said out of the blue

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"Will you have to poop in your shorts on Saturday"

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"What!!!"

. "Will you have to poop in your shorts on Saturday?"

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"No, it's not a requirement of the race, why???"

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"Angela ran the Cork marathon and she said there were loads of people in front of her who had pooped in their pants - and you'll be running for a longer than them on Saturday and you'll be eating more"

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"They will have portaloos"

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"Oh! I thought you couldn't stop"

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She spent the rest of the evening cracking jokes with Keevsa on how I could wear incontinence pads or carry a poop scoop with me. The joys..................

Finally, a few marathon photos

The Marina - Mile 15.5 (Heel Striker)

Respect to Ian (755) - Who held on all the way (There were other - promise e.g. the three guys on the left in the previous photo - Gearóid(309), Stephen (377) & Mark (1345)

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