After weeks and weeks of building mileage and mostly running slowly, I’m ready to start testing the waters a little bit on what my legs actually have in them.
If my mileage stays steady, it looks like my legs currently have roughly a comfortable 8:30 pace in them. After a mile warm-up (slight uphill for a 1/2 mile), I was able to steadily pace below 8:30 pace. Pushing tempo slightly got me mostly below 7:30 pace.
The question is, do I have sub-3:30 marathon strength yet, or even sub-20 5k strength? Race day is such a different animal that training, and feats that you can’t get near in training suddenly happen on race day.