Calculations

Key Words: Yasso, McMillan, Magic Mile
Word Count: 601

The rain let up just enough to start speed work today. Four repeats of 1200m hard with 400m wasy. With my heart rate monitor strapped on, I arrived (albeit late; stupid work) to start the fun. My times were 5:48, 5:43, 5:55, and 3:55. Wow! 3:55, in 1200m?!? Not exactly, try, 800m. As I was about to start the last repeat, it started raining lightly. By the middle of the second lap, it was raining with impunity. After Saturday's drenching, I was in no mental shape to continue in the precipitation, so I speed up and completed a final 800. Lazy, sure. Bad excuse, yep. Does it matter, naw, I don't think so. On the heart rate front, my watch dutifully recorded my ticker topping out at 186. It's looking more and more like somewhere around 190 is my limit. There's a Fall Marathon group social Thursday after work, so I have to try and find time to still do a tempo run with those festivities. If it ain't a Friday, 'tis best to put socializing over running. On to predictions for the future!

There are three main ways to predict your time in an event (without including past performance, which is so lame and like 1990's to do). I thought I would cover those, and how they say I should be running the upcoming marathon.

Yasso 800s - As I've stated, do 10 repeats of 400m hard followed by 400m easy. I think I can easily crank out ten of these bad boys in under 4:15 per hard repeat (4 minutes, 15 seconds), so, the theory goes, I should be able to run a marathon in around 4 hours and 15 minutes. I break this one, as I've clearly been able to do this before, but have never come close to its prediction.

McMillan Running - This online resource is frequently talked about, and perhaps it's speed calculator is the most frequently used by runners: http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm. My recent times at distance are as follows: 5k, 24:40, 1/2 marathon, 2:05. Those times lead to marathon predictions of 4:00 and 4:24 respectively. Nope, broke both of them, though the 4:24 is getting in the ballpark.

Jeff Galloway's Magic Mile - Simple, take your best time in the mile, multiply that by 1.3, and that should give you your per mile pace in a hard ran marathon. If I assume my best mile is 7:45 (conservative, but I rarely run a mile for all out speed), I get a marathon time of 4:24. If I take my most recent mile best (8:03 from a few days ago), I get 4:34. This one is simple, and it's half-marathon version (1.2 times your mile best) seems reasonably accurate.

I'll admit I have a great, deep seeded fear of not breaking 5 hours in a marathon. The truth is, if I'm honest with myself, that will happen on day; I'm only a calf cramp away after all! I suppose though, that 800 lb gorilla in the room gives me motivation, and keeps me honest with my training. These calculations really don't tell me anything I don't know. If I run good, and am smart, I should be able to keep things under 5 hours. If I run the race of my life, I just might be able to break 4:30!

Stay dry, drink good beer, and set your fantasy teams early; NFL starts in two days!