Pace and time, are they interchangeable?

During the course of my training for my first marathon, I made the mistake of just focusing on time. I was getting frustrated when I plateaued and couldn't decrease my speed anymore, without thinking of why. What I failed to realize is I was using pace and time interchangeably, inevitably leading to my lack of improvement. I've learned now that my time and speed is a component of my pace, along with many other factors, which I failed to address during my training. These factors included stride, cadence, and breathing. In hindsight I realize I did not address cadence or stride at all. I also noticed how difficult they are to change. I have extremely short legs, so my stride length is naturally short, which also makes my cadence more like the "pitter patter" or scurrying of a mouse lol I've been trying to focusing on longer strides, but it's hard to keep a good cadence when I do. I now see why they say to give yourself at least three months to change. Baby steps. It's not three months to get to the 13 miles, but 3 months to get into a groove along the way. This is something that I could only learn by trying, so time to take it to the course and change it for the next one!

Kicking it into high gear

I've decided to make a few changes to my training regimen to help improve my pace. I realized I never really picked it up during my race, and even when I tried, I didn't have much "get up and go." Because of this, I've decided to incorporate sprints into my training. Below you can see what a difference it made too. The bottom 2 miles were ran doing sprint/jog intervals. I split up the sprints during the mile, doing anywhere from 100-400M, trying to push myself further as I went. The second set of 2 miles were done at a slower jog than my race pace (they were done after my sprint-jog intervals, and I lifted legs the day before, so needless to say I was tired). Regardless, you can see what a difference it made. I shaved an entire minute off my time. My goal is to keep adding miles to the intervals, so I can have my "get up and go" during my race. Hoping to see some improvements soon! 

Getting back into it

I haven't updated in awhile, so I decided to back track a bit. Here's my first run after my marathon. I took about a month off to let my body recover. I made the mistake of not doing much cardio on my break.... but surprisingly enough, my time for my first 2 miles was actually faster than my average pace during my marathon. Letting my body heal definitely made all the difference in the world. But then you can see where my stamina dropped off... aka mile 3. It's crazy how fast you de-train. Even though I was frustrated at first, I know it's not that bad considering the break  I took. Now I'm ready to get back into it and start making improvements!