Why your marathon paces should come from a real run
The single biggest reason a training plan feels wrong is that its paces are guessed. Here's how to anchor them on reality.
Most plans ask you to pick a vague fitness level and then hand you paces based on it. The problem is obvious once you say it out loud: you're guessing, and the plan inherits your guess.
A better approach is to anchor your training paces on a recent, honest effort — a parkrun, a 10K, a half. From one real performance we can estimate the others with surprising accuracy, because endurance fades in a predictable way as distance grows.
That's why The Marathon Clinic asks for a recent run. It turns 'about this fast, maybe' into a set of paces you can actually trust: easy, long, marathon, threshold, intervals. Get the anchor right and the whole plan clicks into place.
If you don't have a recent race, that's fine — give us your typical weekly volume and we'll start conservative. The moment you log a hard effort, the picture sharpens.
Try it on your own running