A grand scheme

This just in from my friend Bob. Bob has broken 3:00 in the marathon 13 times. And owns a 20:58 100-mile PR. Bob is a genius. He hangs around with me anyway. Community service, I think.

We're doing Crooked Road 24-Hour together Dec. 3-4. It's a .94-mile mostly gravel loop down near Roanoke. And Bob has a plan.

From Bob ...

"I have a scheme that I think will work. I am using the run/walk model, and here is what I found. Walk 3, Run 2. Running pace is 10:00, walk pace is 20:00. I came up with a two-loop scheme: 3-2-3-2-3 first loop, 13 minutes; 2-3-2-4-2, 13 minutes, second loop. For a .94 mi loop that is right at 14:00 per mile, which will get us 100, plus a little. The 3s are walks, all 2s are runs, and the 4 is a walk, once every other lap. After 26 laps, we have 36 minutes to spare and still make 100 miles. That is for each 26-lap segment, we have an extra 36 minutes, for whatever. If we don't need it after each 26 laps, we are building in a good cushion in any case. 106 laps is a 100 miles. I think this scheme is guaranteed to prevent going too fast early. Walking @ 20:00 pace is leisurely, not the least bit pushing. It's a stroll, almost. Two minutes running is not going to get your heart rate up very high, ya know? Especially on a flat course. The key is inverting the usual ratio, with the walk segment a little longer than the run segment."

I don't really know what to say about this, other than that I thought I should share it. You just should not keep stuff like this to yourself. It begs to be shared.

I will come back here now and then in the coming weeks. Just to ponder this. And to wonder if I have the moxie to actually try it. I am betting no.

Could, however, make for a heckuva story. If the other runners don't beat us severely at 3 a.m. when my Timex 150-Lap Ironman -- the one with the SIXTEEN different interval settings that I can engage at the same time -- beeps for the 413th time.