Based on your 5k / 10k times (assuming they were accurate courses) then it seems 3:10 is doable, if you add in your half then it's closer to that 3:15-3:18 with some simple fatigue curves. If you shoot for that 3:10 goal though good luck and some thoughts on pacing on link below!

http://www.pacecalculator.com/...2e8c8181bfdc2e7e11a0

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Founder: BestBikeSplit
Amazonian

Ah looks like the course is slightly different towards the finish but overall the same flatness.

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Founder: BestBikeSplit
Amazonian

I don't think your miles are there for a 3:10. I would go out in and run the first few around mid 7:30's and then close in on 7:25 or so on the back half. I personally would not run over 10 this weekend and my general rule of thumb is no runs longer in miles than days before marathon.

I would agree mainly because those times sound identical to mine 18 months ago or so when I was gearing up for the Scotiabank marathon in Toronto.

It was a humid day, but the wheels completely came off in the last 10 k shooting for a 3:10.

My suggestion, and I’m no expert, is to aim for 3:20 and see how things are going at the halfway point.

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Dan Mayberry
Amateur a lot of things, professional a few things.

I hit a 3'05:27" with pretty similar avgs as you. my PBs were a little faster and the course consisted of longer, rolling hills.

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Use this link to save $5 off your USAT membership renewal:
https://membership.usatriathlon.org/...A2-BAD7-6137B629D9B7

Thanks for the reply Ryan! I'm a big fan of BBS and still have your appearance on the TrainerRoad podcast bookmarked for re-listening prior to my Ironman in the summer!

The Pacing Project website is great, I didn't realise you had a running equivalent, is that a new venture? It's nice to see that the ideal pacing on that course is very steady as you'd expect. Do you have any plans to open it up to custom courses and some of the other variables mentioned in the About section?

My most recent (and also second) marathon was an attempt to BQ (3:15 for my AG). I have slightly faster PB's than you (18:15/39:37/1:27:xx) and went into it with a very similar training load (averaging just under 40 mpw). I was feeling good heading into the race and based on some training runs and calculators I thought I might be able to pull off a 3:05-3:10. I asked basically the same question here and got lots of great advice, including plenty of feedback that my mileage was inadequate to go anywhere near 3:05, and probably inadequate to even BQ. Turned out to be spot-on, as I blew up at mile 23 and finished in 3:18. It was a relatively flat course that is widely used as a Boston qualifier, and conditions were great.

Of course everyone is different but for me personally 35-45 mpw simply isn't enough mileage to build solid marathon endurance. I'm pretty confident I need to be consistently over 50 mpw to get down under 3:15. Good luck and keep us posted!

I appreciate the honesty, because those are the same reservations that I have myself!

I'd like to have put in a few 50+ mile weeks and some more quality running sessions, but it's quite an early season race so I have to work with what I have now. I know what the sensible option is!

And I like the tapering rule.

Thanks for the reply, that's exactly the kind of first-hand experience I was looking for, albeit with a disappointing outcome for you!

I'll have a read through that thread, but I'm definitely swaying towards a more conservative pace.

Hey Thanks for the support. We made the pacing project as an experiment to test new Normalized Graded Pace equations and as fun API project. I'm not sure what the next step is for it as it was mostly a demo for the API we have running in the background for fatigue curves (pace / distance cals based on recent races), course segmentation and pacing the course. I'll take a look though and see what the next few items in the dev que are.

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Founder: BestBikeSplit
Amazonian

You have the engine (if not more) to go 3:10, but you are correct it will need to be in the context of a solid volume build. If you get the chance to go for it, you will be surprised just how much more you have in you when you get to 50+/week from where you are now and another inflection at 75 or so.

Good luck, me and the better half have Paris on the bucket list, look forward to the race report.

My 5K and 10K PR is very close to yours, my 13.1 is considerably faster. The longer the race the better I tend to do. My second full marathon (first was 3:22) was a 3:04 off of fairly similar volume. Maybe a tiny bit more.

Someone once told me that there will come a point in every marathon where it really hurts ("there is no wall, there is just a point when this race will suck"). You can choose to slow down when that happens or you can embrace the suck and keep running. Hard. You would be amazed at how long you can still keep going when every fiber of you wants to stop. It's going to hurt if you are running fast or slow. If you go slow, it hurts longer. During the first marathon at mile 22 it got very hard and I slowed down about 30 seconds per mile. On the second one, it got hard again but I knew that I could keep going, so I did, and actually ran the last five miles as the fastest of the whole day.

If you can HTFU between miles 20-22 I predict that you can run close to 3:10, maybe even break break it.

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Jason
None of the secrets of success will work unless you do.

Thanks for the replies!

Having just read that other thread about the treadmill guy gassing the first half of his marathon and blowing up, I think I'm settling towards a more conservative approach!

I think I'll head out at a 4:40 per km / 7:30 per mile pace, which is just a shade slower than 3:15 pace and then try to kick it on in the second half. Taking it marginally easier in the first half is my usual long-run modus operandi so I figure it'll be sensible to stick with something reasonably familiar.

I've just drawn up a rough strategy using the following splits as targets, so hopefully stealing a second or two on each km as well if the terrain permits:

0 to 10 km: 4:40 min per km
10 to 30 km: 4:35 min per km
30 to 40 km: 4:30 min per km
40 to 42.5 km: 4:25 min per km
Total time: 3:14:22
Half Split: -02:00 mins

I know trying to kick it on late in the race comes with it's risks, but I don't think this approach should leave too much time on the table and should hopefully minimise the risk of blowing up late in the second half. I feel like I mustered a reasonably strong final 10k in my last marathon so I'm hoping it's not too ambitious to plan to increase the pace like that. Or should I just plan to run a steady ~4:35 for each and every km from start to finish?! What do you guys think?

I'll report back on my results and on the race itself; it looks like a very nice run along the river, hitting a lot of major tourist sights along the way so I'm really looking forward to it!

DC Rainmaker has a few Paris articles on his site that are worth reading.

Friends of mine who ran Paris a couple of years ago completely missed their PBs, but they stopped for croissants a couple of times.

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Couple Paris points, this from spectating last year so for what its worth....

My wife was running and her goal was to run a BQ, she was trained and ready. Ultimately she came to within a few minutes (3:39, which was a still great and a huge PR for her). While one could also attribute that to being a hot day the biggest issue she said she found were the other runners and pacing. She positioned herself in the correct bullpen but found it she was getting both crushed by people going out too fast (who then died), trying to pick her way through the slowing crowds and then no one to run with towards the end when she needing some steady miles. Also, as you run the course narrows so even as the race naturally might thin out your still getting a pretty good 'crowd' as the last bit in the park is on much narrower roads than the miles proceeding it.

Be smart about setting yourself to run consistently, it didn't look like a very easy race to do that in from my perspective.

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Taylor Rogers

2024: IM Hamburg

I would say go for 3:10, but don’t do that long run next weekend you were planning, it will do no good.
Sure if you shoot for 3:10 you may have a tough 10k but that’s part of the game and nobody remembers a coward! During my last marathon I broke my half pr during the race and my full and didn’t slow down much on the back half. Sure I would maybe have run a minute or two faster if I paced it more evenly, but I was also pushed to my limits and had a great day.
Sometimes in life and in sports you have to just do the stupid thing and go for it!

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon

The course is fairly forgiving in many ways. As others noted, the first few miles can be deceiving in terms of speed, since the streets are wide there and straight initially - so it's easy to get into the flow of overachieving fast runners. That said, you'll find that the vast majority of Parisians who self-select pace groups can actually run those pace groups (at least towards the front packs). Said differently: Hold on, as if you seeded slightly ahead of goal, you'll be passed.

Your only notable altitude gain will come early in the race around miles 4-6 as you head up to the park. It's a slow climb and early, so I wouldn't even think about it. Once in the park it's pancake flat till you come back down to the city (you'll lose that elevation swiftly in basically one shot). Then along the river it's wide open with tunnels. Be aware that if relying on GPS totally (no footpod) to keep an eye on what your watch thinks is the pace/distance in the tunnels. Most of the tunnels are only a couple hundred meters long, but one in particular is 2/3rds of a mile.

Also, it's along this river section that if it ends up being a really hot day (which oddly enough does happen), you'll bake - because there's zero protection from the sun. So drink up if it's a hot day.

After that you'll head up towards the Bois. There's what will feel like some solid rollers throughout that. In reality they aren't that big...but everything sucks at miles 20 and beyond. Like before, depending on how spring is sprunging, there will be either no or little tree cover yet as the roads are actually fairly wide for much of it (2-4 lanes).

The good news on the course is that you'll hit almost all the major sites in Paris, there's plenty of people out cheering, especially in the center of town (less so in either Bois), and there's very few turns - so less focus on running the perfect line. But if you want to focus on that, you'll find they've painted a green line exactly where the fastest route is. That's super helpful when your brain shuts off. Just be careful that you don't end up clumped in a group of similar line-followers, sacrificing speed versus passing them.

Good luck!

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My tiny little slice of the internets: dcrainmaker.com

Thanks for all the replies. I ran a 3:12:13 in the end, which I was fairly pleased with!

I had all good intentions of following the pacing plan here but like a total marathon newbie was completely caught up with the fast downhill start and massive crowds; hammered the first half in 1:33, feeling absolutely fantastic, cue a few rollers coming in and out of the tunnels along the river and the sun starting to beat down, hit the 20 mile mark and started to unravel.

The steepest "climb" came at about 21 miles up into the Bois de Boulogne, it's probably less than half a mile long but it felt like Mont Blanc and came very close to killing my run dead. Desperately ground along keeping my pace to sub-5:00 min kms / sub-8:00 min miles and just about managed to keep it respectable through to the end. A harsh lesson in pacing and I should've known a lot better but it was still a solid 7:30 min PB and definitely no lingering doubts this time about whether I paced it too conservatively!

Had a great day, really well organised and an absolutely massive event; I read there were 56,000 people signed up and over 41,000 finishers.

Congratulations to anyone else who was out there yesterday!

https://www.strava.com/activities/1496088342