Short race and training summary.

Goal: 3:10 Result: 3:12.14 (P

I felt great during first 20 km, and reached half-point in 1:33.30. After that I had to slow down a bit, but I still was a minute ahead of my goal time at 37km. Last 5km was lousy. My legs were dead and I just couldn´t keep up the speed. Recovery has started quite well and I hope I´m running again in few days.

Training during this year:

Average: 40 km/week Longest: 61 km/week Shortest: 5 km/week (sore hamstring)

Only 4 long runs (20km or more): 30, 25, 22 and 20 km.

Future goal: 3 hour marathon in 18th of August

That is hard to achieve with only 12 weeks to train, but I think it might be possible by doing more long training runs ranging from 25 to 35 km (I know I shoud have done more of these before this race).

Congrats. Looks like we'd make good training partners! I'm going for the sub-3 in October. Best of luck to you in August.

Congratulations, Mikko! Great race and best of luck with training for your August marathon. You've done marathons before?

Cam

I suppose so. 20 milers with 4:45/km pace are just what I need. Unfortunately Hamilton is bit too far away ;(

Good luck to you too.

This was my fifth marathon.

1998: 3:51, I think I was totally undertrained. 1999: 3:44, still undertrained. 2000 July: 3:14, Route turned out to be about 600m short (I was quite angry). 2000 August: 3:29, I wasn´t fully recovered from previous marathon.

And now this 3:12.14.

I know that I still train quite little, and I believe I might be able to achieve 2:40 some day if I can increase my training without injuries.

At this point quite a few readers will feel the iron fist of envy clench inside their chests

Just remember to thank your parents and grandparents every time your easy stride takes you past those hopelessly slow joggers!

Around and especially under the 3-hour-mark the scale is like a reversed Richter scale: it´s ten times as hard to bring one´s PB down from 3:00 to 2:50 as it is from 3:10 to 3:00 - and so on!

But I´m not saying you won´t be able to do it

I´m dreaming, but only dreaming, of running under 2:50 in the famously PB-friendly Berlin Marathon in September, but I'll be pleased with each and every 30s under 3:00...

I´m dreaming, but only dreaming, of running under 2:50 in the famously PB-friendly Berlin Marathon in September, but I'll be pleased with each and every 30s under 3:00...

I believe there are several methods to predict your marathon time or to calculate your ideal pace: multiply your 10K time by (in my case) 4.63-4.70, divide your 10K pace by 0.88, or add 20-30s to your min/km pace, and there´s the nice calculator at: http://www.runwestflorida.com/predict.htm - so there´s both variety and room to veer a bit on the optimistic side...

My goal, as said, is a 2:50 on a flat course in perfect running weather. I´ve done a 3:14 in 1999 and 3:02 in 2000 in similar conditions, so at least the simple arithmetic is on my side

In the same period my 10K times have dropped from just under 40 in 1999, 38 in 2000 to bubbling over 37 this year - which wouldn´t appear to be sufficient for me to achieve that 2:50 goal.

(I seem to have had _some_ natural speed - and since I could 'comfortably' run a mile at a certain pace, it has so far been a relatively simple exercise to build endurance to last 10K on a pace close to that pace - but I may now have approached the limit of that speed.)

Is the predictive rule really so strict? Does anyone have exprience of 'surpassing' their 10K time, of running a marathon in excess of what any prediction would´ve allowed? ´

I'd tend to believe that most of us here haven't run what our 10k times have predicted.

Using a 10k to predict a marathon requires you put the same amount of effort into racing the marathon as you put into racing the 10k. Let me tell you that this isn't an easy task. Remember how you felt at 5 miles in the 10k? This is how you are going to feel for 26.2 miles.

I just poked around at the web site and found the calculator to be fairly accurate for my shorter distance times. In fact it was dead on predicting my 10 mile pr from my 5 mile pr. So I'm fairly certain the numbers are correct. Very impressive.

My opinion: Yes this is a predictor for what is possible. However reality usually has something to say about that. In your case reality may be what is possible.

Yes. Numerous times. I plugged in my 10K PR run in 1992 of 36:04. It predicts a marathon time of 2:48:58. I ran 2:46:14. I have always run faster at the marathon distance than my 10K times predict. BTW, I've always run slower at the 5K distance than my 10K times predict. However, the prediction for 50K was pretty much right on the money.

That is what I´ve gathered. It´s certainly true in my (very limited) experience: I´ve been almost hand-led in optimal pace and felt I couldn´t have done any better, yet I´ve fallen 6 and 4 minutes short of the least bold prediction - and I expect to do so in September.

But I was extremly curious if there _are_ people who´ve done it!

Well in my case I cannot really get the same effort out of myself in 10K that some others can: the line between the pace on which 'I could go on forever' and the one that leaves me going slower than I was is very thin - or in other words I´m too soft

But I agree that the predicted pace should perhaps be seen as the pace one should on no account exceed.

For purposes of prediction it´s better to run a half- marathon - it´s useful training anyway - and add 10% to the second half. Or so I´ve been told (my long runs were all at lower pace).
http://www.runwestflorida.com/predict.htm

A buddy of mine also found it almost uncannily accurate on those distances!

Yes, and at some point stretching the boundaries of what is possible will in my case necessarily require the kind of training that is needed to run the 10K faster

Hi,

I have a similar calculator at http://home.earthlink.net/~ktschmidt/running/ and a performance factor (Perf) that you can use to compare performance in races at different distances.

For example, using the times below, a 10K time of 36:04 predicts to a marathon of 2:49:38 using my calculator. Given that he has run under 2:49:38 for the marathon, that would indicate that the marathon may be his better distance.