Showing posts with label prediction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label prediction. Show all posts

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Pace expectations and the online calculator

Your guess is as good as mine
Today's workout (elliptical): 25 minutes

Thinking about two of my planned races in November, both 10K's, I decided to analyze my performance at other race distances to help me manage my expectations. My PR for a 5K is 25:50, or 8:19 per mile. Both times I've run 8K's I've averaged 9:00 per mile. That means that adding 3K (1.86 miles) caused my speed to degrade by 8.2%. That's a big drop for not much incremental distance. Averaging all my 5K's, my pace is 8:31 meaning that I generally lose 6% when going from 5K to 8K. My 10K track record is spotty because I've only run one of them on pavement but my overall pace averages 9:32, or almost 12% higher than my 5K average. According to the calculators that you can find online that factor in age grading, V02 Max and other formulations, I should be averaging 8:50 per mile on 10Ks. That pace is based on my 5K average. It's a nice thought but I'm not sure how to get there.

For now I continue to focus on distance first and speed second. One thing that seems obvious is that adding more length to my runs and maintaining a consistent pace will bring my power curve forward, past the 3 mile mile mark. I've run 8 miles at 9:15 so I know I can improve on my current performance. I'll keep that in mind this weekend when I rerun the Cow Harbor course in Northport.
 

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