Denouement

What model is your Garmin?

Have you thought about doing workouts the really old fashioned way and listening to your body?

I do most of my workouts by "feel" & very rarely do I try to hit certain paces pre-determined by some chart. I don't think my muscles have learned to read books yet.

My Garmin isn't trustworthy either.

I have the 301, so the older longer model, but has the heart rate monitor. I bought it in June.

Katie- Hmmm. Did I mention I am an accountant? Pretty high strung and A-type (thus my comfort in badgering Tom a little--Tom forgive me!). The past two races I have run faster than I planned because I felt good, so I do try to pay attention to what my body tells me, but for workouts I like to have an agenda and goals (sounds like a board meeting but really its a workout). You do have a great point and I think you are right that I need to run St. George with a broad window of acceptable goal-time. I plan on wearing a pace bracelet (haven't decided what pace will be on it yet, but leaning on 3:05-3:07--adjusted each mile for altitude changes) but plan on running how I feel, especially after Veyo.

Michelle - even 305 could be unreliable, and 301 is going to be for sure. Tom probably has 205 or 305, if yes, when in doubt I would go with Tom's splits. But all in all, listen to Katie, she's got a very good point. You HAVE to run by how you feel, not by your splits. The purpose of taking splits is for observation, and to set intermediate goals while en-route. E.g if you get to 20 miles in 2:08:00, you can say, try to hold off the 6:15 girl on the next 6, that is each mile no slower than 6:15 on average, and here comes a qualifier, worth the risk to push. But none of this, first mile in 6:10, feels like a jog, but that is way too fast for my projection, I need to slow down, or first mile in 7:20, feels just right, but that is way too slow for my projection, I need to speed up. Who knows what you are actually ready for on the day of the race? Maybe you are ready for a super feat, or maybe you are sick. Jack Daniels talks about it in Running Formula.

Speaking of bracelets, I was thinking of making a Fast Running Blog pacing bracelet for St. George with elevation profile taken into account. I can easily provide the data, but I am not quite sure about the logistics of making the bracelet, any ideas?

Sasha, I was just going to print it out of excel, hiding all columns except mile # and target mile split, then cut down and staple on my wrist. Ok, not on my wrist, but around my wrist. I think I will perhaps laminate it at work. I will probably be making more than one so I can hedge on which one to wear until the last minute. Very low tech.

Tom, how did you make yours last year?

Does someone actually have a pace calculator that accounts for the elevation change at St. George? I used to have one from Scott Zimmerman, but have lost it since 2004.

I have the Zimmerman calculator. When I've compared its results with my splits from St. George 2005 and 2006, its a pretty good simulation.

would you be able to send it to me? james dot winzenz at cox dot net

It's done.

Let me know if it didn't make it.

You can also try St. George Marathon on the Course Tool. Use smooth crazy grade feature with the cutoff of 7%.

I've heard reports that the Course Tool does not work with MSIE. I have not been particularly anxious to debug this for a number of reasons - I have a deeply rooted distaste for Microsoft products, do not a machine running Windows handy, and am not looking forward to getting near one; I think if one is consigned to using Windows, he should at least use Firefox; and on top of that Google pays me $1 every time a Windows user downloads and installs Firefox via my link from the blog on a computer where it has not been previously installed. But as we are growing, MSIE issues do need to get fixed eventually. If anybody with MSIE could help me debug this (I need Javascript line numbers and error messages along with the description of what you were doing to make it happen), this would be appreciated.