Pace Prediction

Marathon training question (Long...sorry)
Posted by Chris G. on July 25, 2004 at 10:41:21:

I've seen so many marathon pace predictors based on performance at shorter distances, and I wonder if these are always accurate. I've only run a couple of 5ks and 10ks, preferring the longer, more drawn out, excruciating pain of marathons, but based on my fastest 5k and 10k times, my "predicted" marathon pace is much slower than I have actually run. Conversely, if I extrapolate backwards, using my marathon time to predict, say, a 5k, the resulting time is way faster than I think I could ever run. So, I'm wondering…should I bother working on getting my short distance times down, or is it the case that maybe in some people there isn't necessarily a correlation? If that were the case, then what would be the best way to train? Faster and/or longer tempo runs? Faster long runs? I would be grateful for any advice or suggestions. Thanks!

Being a nerd of a certain stripe...
Posted by Brian on July 25, 2004 at 17:14:38:
In Reply to: Chris, you should get Larry's (Allen) e-mail, he is amazing with this! posted by Chris on July 25, 2004 at 15:01:17:

...For seven years I've kept a record of my race times in a spreadsheet along with a column that projects a marathon time for each result using the formula T2 = T1 x (D2/D1)^1.06. This gives me a handy way to compare how well I ran independently of race distance.

Until recently, my projected marathon times appeared to be ambitious to the point of being entirely out of reach and I had pretty much concluded that this indicated that, while I liked running long, my talents were better at the shorter races. But it also made me more determined to train harder for the longer races.

Then, finally this year, with the single notable exception of the disaster at Boston, the ten races I've run so far this year at distances ranging from 1-mile to marathon all have projected to marathon times between 2:58 and 3:05 -- a convincingly narrow range. So, I'm definitely converted to believing in the accuracy of that formula.

By all means check with Larry for his opinion which should readily outweigh mine, but I bet that you'd find that if you concentrated for a while on faster paced training that your times at shorter distances would fall into place to match those projected downward from your marathon times.