Weekend Workout: Metric Marathon

This weekend I had the opportunity to try a new (to me) workout: the metricmarathon. This workout, created by Keith and Kevin Hanson, the coaches behindthe Hansons-Brooks Distance Project, aims to simulate racing a marathon asclosely as possible without all the physical stress of running a full 26.2miles.

Part of our route

For the metric marathon, you run 26.2 kilometers (roughly 16.3 miles) asgoal marathon pace. Ideally, you also want to simulate the course you’ll be runningas well. Since you do the workout on tired legs—you haven’t tapered like youwill before your big race—you experience a level of fatigue similar to theactual event without trashing your body.  

In previous training cycles I’ve always included some pace runs, oftenthrowing in a few goal marathon pace miles at the end of longer runs, but I hadnever done something like this before. Thankfully, our coach and captains organizeda team metric marathon on Sunday.

We started in Lower Manhattan and ended in Astoria, covering three boroughsin the process. Along the way, the Brooklyn Bridge stood in for the Verrazano,the Welfare Island Bridge stood in for the Willis Avenue Bridge, and AstoriaPark stood in for Central Park. Other key course features, like the Pulaski andQueensboro Bridges, needed no understudies. The result? A course that was verysimilar in topography to the actual New York City Marathon.

How did I do? Not too shabby; I was able to stay within a few seconds of mygoal pace for the whole run. There’s still a big difference between 16.3 and26.2, but with over a month to go, hopefully I can get myself to where I wantto be come November 4!