026 Laura Norris – Predicting Marathon Time: Pacing, Training, Fueling & Focus

Episode Summary

Laura Norris is a certified running coach, small business owner, writer, and content creator. She believes in a blended approach to coaching that utilizes both evidence-based methods of training and a holistic approach of coaching the runner as a person first, athlete second. Laura’s philosophy emphasizes sustainability, enjoyment, and long-term growth. Today, Whitney and Laura talk all about how to predict your marathon time. They discuss pacing, pickups at the end of long runs, and the different types of running calculators, including Jack Daniels’ VDOT. Finally, Laura provides tips and best practices on tapering, fueling and when to heighten your focus on your marathon goals.

Episode Sponsor

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Key Takeaways

01:12 – Whitney Heins welcomes Laura Norris back to the show to discuss her CIM Training and how to predict your marathon time

12:09 – Pacing and Jack Daniels’ VDOT running calculator

20:27 – Other popular running calculators

25:12 – Best workouts to help inform what your marathon time will be

28:01 – How to determine your marathon pace

30:52 – Pickups at the end of a long run

36:12 – The Garmin Race Predictor, easy miles, and long-run pace

43:01 – The best time to focus on your goal time and marathon tapering

46:02 – Fueling and other best practices to implement prior to race day

50:21 – Whitney thanks Laura for joining the show and lets listeners know where they can connect with her

Tweetable Quotes

Picking an arbitrary goal time is a sort of reverse engineering that doesn’t work in training, because you’re not this robot who you can input, ‘I want to run a nine minute mile pace’ which is roughly what you want for a sub-four hour… Click To Tweet (10:26) (Laura)

For most runners, taking a 10k or longer will give them a more accurate result than taking a mile or a 5k just because those shorter distances have more anaerobic contribution. And that’s when you’re getting into differences of muscle… Click To Tweet  (17:34) (Laura)

Once we get to four and a half to five hours and five and a half to six, your marathon pace is gonna have a lot of overlap with your easy pace. And, when we talk about marathon pace, it’s not always this reverse engineered X minutes… Click To Tweet  (25:33) (Laura)

One workout that I find that is really great is to do ten minutes at threshold, thirty minutes at threshold, all those ones that push the upper end of threshold and really rely on the ability to control your pacing and then kinda add… Click To Tweet  (30:36) (Laura)

Where you are eight weeks out from your marathon is not where you’re gonna be in your marathon. And, if you’re reaching peak fitness eight weeks out from a marathon, you should probably be worried. You’re probably overtraining. Click To Tweet  (43:39) (Laura)

Carbs are the spark that’s gonna fuel the fire of the marathon. You need that substrate. You’re putting gas in your tank. No one’s giving out medals at the end for running the marathon on the fewest carbs. Click To Tweet  (48:19) (Laura)

Links Mentioned

Whitney’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/whitney-heins-02ba3b5

The Mother Runners Club – https://www.themotherrunners.com/

Laura’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-norris-64269055/

Laura’s Website – https://lauranorrisrunning.com/

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