6.5 km at marathon pace

4 miles (6.5 km) | 36:38 | 9:03/mile (5:38/km)

My target pace for a four hour marathon is 9:10/mile or 5:41/km. I was pretty close today. I also wanted to run even splits (the same time for each km). There was some operator error with my watch, so I didn't get splits for all the kilometers. I ran the first three in 5:35, 5:23, and 5:58. I'm not sure that the km marks are exact (I took them from my route online). The third one is partly uphill, so it might be right. Then, I ran a half kilometer (the 0.25 km of my 3.25 km out-and-back, twice) in 2:47, a 5:34/km pace. I forgot to stop my watch at the next km mark, but I had 11:18 for the next two, or 5:39/km. The final one was 5:38.

So my average and my splits were mostly in the 5:35 - 5:39 range, about what I was targeting.

Tomorrow is a scheduled off day. The training program I'm following has two hard runs per week: a pace run on Friday followed by a long run on Saturday. Those runs are intentionally back-to-back to tire you out for the long run. This week, due to travel (to Salt Lake City) all day Friday and a busy schedule in Salt Lake City, I have split the two hard runs.

There is also a scheduled cross training day on Sunday, but I'm going to change that to a rest day and move it to Tuesday. The start of the official 18-week marathon program is Sunday. The first two days are a three miler and a five miler. Since I'll be on the road, I will run 60 minutes on Saturday (approximately 6 miles), 30 minutes on Sunday, and 50 minutes on Monday. I will also not get my 60 minutes of daily bicycling on Friday, Monday, or Tuesday. However, I will have two layovers each way. Maybe I can count walking from airport gate to airport gate with a carry-on bag as cross-training.