Pacing downhill half marathon?
I am racing the Colorado (half) Marathon which follows the Poudre River into Ft Collins, Colorado. According to the official race site, it is almost all downhill, at -0.5%, with a minor hill in the middle. The 1/2 is the second half of the marathon course.
http://www.ftcollinsmarathon.com/PDF/elevationmap.pdf
Here is the GPS course when I ran it 2 years ago. (Gps freaked a little at 6-7 miles and got off course a little). The initial grade plots more like -1.5% from my GPS, and MapMyRun (which I assume re-calcs based on the route).
http://www.mapmyrun.com/routes/view/32429722/
My 40 VDOT suggests I can run a 1:52 (8:35/mile). Yeah for progress! I am at my lighter side of average (6'4" 194#). I ran this 2 years ago @ 1:55. I've run the Slacker's half (3,000' downhill, starting at 11,000!) and definitely felt the pounding on that one!
Plugging in my pace into the Wiki guideline... Miles 1,2,3 = 8:50, 8:45, 8:40, Miles 4-10 = 8:35, then evaluate and kick the last 3.
Is there much, if any, adjustment to the Wiki guidelines based on the downhill nature of the course?
-Joe