Third marathon coming up on Saturday. A look at the forecast shows steady 12mph headwinds for most of the point to point route. My goal is 8:20 pace, how much will this be affected by the wind? I’m shaped like a billboard, 6’5 and not exactly narrow.
What are your experiences? How should I adjust?
sooner or later it will turn into tailwind, draft a bigger person if you would like overall should not have too much of a bearing on time, its been windy as all hell here in Texas my training splits don’t differ much at all on a 15K run,
Joey G
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During the A1A 1/2/full marathon a few weeks ago there was a strong headwind for about half the race. I ran approximately 3 minutes slower than the mcmillan calculator but I don’t know how much of the difference was caused by wind and how much by the fact I had only done 1 run longer than 3 miles within a few months of the race.
edit: also, between miles ~3-6 everybody was trying to draft everybody which ended up causing everyone to sprint away from each other most likely burning a lot of unnecessary energy. When I was drafting people I didn’t notice much difference anyways.
Unfortunately, it won’t turn into a tail wind until later the next evening… I don’t plan on still being on the course.
A bigger person? I assume you mean the biggest I can find.
Having done either the Gasparilla 1/2 Marathon or Full Marathon here in Tampa over the last 4 years, head wind is a given on the way to the finish appx. 4 miles for the half or 10 for the full. It will take some out of you towards mile 18, but mostly because you are already fatigued and you mentally just want it to stop at the point. My 2 pennies worth say don’t go out to hard with the adrenaline of the starting gun/crowd. Find a comfortable rhythm and run your race. Over 26.2 miles a lot can happen so don’t worry about what it out of your control, and focus on what you can control.
Good Luck and Have Fun!
Get a dimple suit…it will make it more annoying than anything…if it is cold think about something for your face for wind burn.
Andrew
HOLY crap the wind at A1A sucked, especially if you did the full. I could feel the slight crosswind push on the outbound and knew it was going to be a painful return – but man it was nasty. It was actually nice to make that loop in the park for a few miles…only to get blasted coming out 
To the OP, I don’t know how much to really adjust your pace, but watch your HR carefully. Good luck.
Coming out of that park was just terrible! felt like I was running in place!
The park was ok… I think I got passed by two women there which wasn’t very fun, but I passed one of them with about 10 feet before the finish
I did a point to point marathon into a headwind a few years ago and it just wore me down. My finish time was a good 30-35 minutes slower than my training predicted. Even the leading Kenyan had slowed by a minute per mile by the end of the race. I’m not sure how strong the wind was, but it was probably more than 12 mph. My guess is the headwind will slow you down anywhere from 10-60 seconds per mile depending on how strong the wind is.
If you’re running in a pack you shouldn’t notice the wind too much.
Last year in Boston was a headwind all the way, but I didn’t notice much due to crowded conditions (my pace was about the same as yours, which is quite average and should guarantee lots of company)
If you’re running in a pack you shouldn’t notice the wind too much.
Last year in Boston was a headwind all the way, but I didn’t notice much due to crowded conditions (my pace was about the same as yours, which is quite average and should guarantee lots of company)
It’s a pretty small race, but hopefully my average pace will lead to some company.
Follow-up / Race-report…
I hoped for a 3:40, faced probably >12mph wind in the face for at least 2/3rds of the course. Got to the halfway point right on schedule 1:51 and then miles 14-18 were totally exposed and grueling, which dropped my pace from 8:25 to 8:55 with increased effort. Despite my stature, I was pulling in people during this section (thanks to lots of hill work)… but that left me unable to regain my pace after that. Lost 6 minutes over the last half. 3:47 overall. PR by 18 minutes.
if that marathon your talking about was in Kansas my friend did the 1/2. He said maybe 10% of it had a tailwind, the other 90% was all into the wind or sidewind. His 1/2 was 2 mins slower than normal. He talked about being very cold also !
BTDT - last year, Ocean Drive Marathon. point to point. although, to be fair, only around 25.5 miles were into the wind.
I’d been training outdoors all year, so it didn’t phase me that much. I chose not to return, though…
sooner or later it will turn into tailwind, draft a bigger person if you would like overall should not have too much of a bearing on time, its been windy as all hell here in Texas my training splits don’t differ much at all on a 15K run,
Joey G
Very true, drafting is a good idea.
BTDT - thanks to urban dictionary… been there done that. I see.
I wasn’t claiming to be the only to ever run into the wind - just thought I’d share.
But thank you too.
Yup, Olathe. The 2nd half was much more exposed. I felt like a kite during the highway overpass section. And it was cold, but I’m a big guy so I stayed pretty warm; and it wasn’t too cold for the barefoot runner that paced close to me.
ooops…
this might be one of those ‘internet can’t give tone’ situations.
my goal was to commiserate. keep in mind: you kept going. I"m sure there were plenty of people who signed up and then didn’t show.
i actually found that drafting didn’t help all that much.
but which race was it, anyway?
-charles
no worries
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There was a solid 12-15 mph headwind for the entire second half of the Tucson marathon in 2006. Most finishers declared it added 5 to 10 minutes to their times. I was going for a sub3 and didn’t make it. Tried to draft off a big tall guy around mile 20, but he was slowing down too much. Five minutes? I’m pretty sure. 10 minutes, I doubt.
I would say 10+ mph wind = 20 sec. per mile slower. 15 mph more like 40 sec. or more. Some said the winds were 20 at Tucson, but a sustained 20 is truly brutal and that day was not brutal, just frustrating.