The 3:45 pace plan

Here's the pace plan I'm going to use to get me under 3:45. It's based on the Myers slowing-down formula, with some delays factored in, based on my experiences last year. I've added a hefty delay in the first mile, where the green and blue starts merge, and a smaller delay at Cutty Sark. I think the delays get less the further up the field you are, judging by comments from my faster friends, so hopefully I'm erring on the side of caution here. I've also knocked my pace per mile back by 5 seconds from the pace I came up with in my previous post. This is to allow for the general jostling and weaving. I found that I was always slower per mile than my GPS was indicating, due probably to the weaving in and out. I think the effect is a bit more than 5 seconds, but I found the discrepancy was less last year than the previous year, probably due to my experience keeping me running a more even line.

What I can't account for is the wasted energy running in a crowd, slowing and speeding with those around you. Running at a pace of 8:16 on my GPS in a London crowd is not the same as running at 8:16 on a training run. Hopefully on the day I will be feeling fresh and this will feel OK. It's going to be tight though!

So here's the plan:

Mile	GPS pace	Delay	Lap	Split
1	8:16	1:40	9:56	9:56
2	8:16	0:05	8:21	18:17
3	8:16	0:05	8:21	26:38
4	8:16	0:05	8:21	34:59
5	8:16	0:05	8:21	43:20
6	8:16	0:05	8:21	51:41
7	8:16	0:39	8:55	1:00:36
8	8:16	0:05	8:21	1:08:57
9	8:16	0:05	8:21	1:17:18
10	8:16	0:05	8:21	1:25:39
11	8:16	0:05	8:21	1:34:00
12	8:16	0:05	8:21	1:42:21
13	8:23	0:05	8:28	1:50:49
14	8:23	0:05	8:28	1:59:17
15	8:23	0:05	8:28	2:07:45
16	8:23	0:05	8:28	2:16:13
17	8:23	0:05	8:28	2:24:41
18	8:23	0:05	8:28	2:33:09
19	8:31	0:05	8:36	2:41:45
20	8:31	0:05	8:36	2:50:21
21	8:31	0:05	8:36	2:58:57
22	8:31	0:05	8:36	3:07:33
23	8:31	0:05	8:36	3:16:09
24	8:41	0:05	8:46	3:24:55
25	8:41	0:05	8:46	3:33:41
26	8:41	0:05	8:46	3:42:27
26.2	8:41	0:00	1:54	3:44:21