Forums >Racing>Runners World Race Time Predictor
Finally a predictor that doesn't make me feel like a marathon slacker. It was a solid 6+ minutes too slow for my PR marathon.
Give it a spin: http://www.runnersworld.com/tools/race-time-predictor
marathon slacker.
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Still.
Dave
Seems close to the Slate marathon predictor than you posted before. I don't have the energy at the moment to see if they are essentially the same. I never know what to put in as far as how many miles that I averaged during this marathon training. All the weeks including taper? Do I count the 3 down weeks that I had and made up for, kind of? In any case, I'll find out on Sunday how it works.
not bad for mile 25
<------ Still.
Me too. The result is still pretty similar to the McMillan and RA predictors, so yeah, I must be a marathon slacker, by about ten minutes.
The Slate calculator and this one are within 30s of each other. But apparently I still suck at marathons because my finish time was still slower than both predictions.
From what I could understand in my haze last night, the Slate calculator may have been an earlier version of this one put out by the same people. In either case, I am going to have to prove both of them wrong.
The Slate calculator was 4 minutes slower than this one. McMillan was 5 minutes faster than my marathon. That's a 15 minute spread between McMillan and Slate for me.
It seems that if you run a decent marathon you should stand a good chance to find yourself in the range given by these calculators.
delicate flower
Says I'm about to run a 3:27 marathon Saturday, which would be disappointing.
<3
RW and Slate both give me 3:47 if I input an average of 42 miles a week (ha! somehow I managed to run less than I had planned on). McMillan is 3:39 and Daniels 3:37. I'm planning on 3:42. I'll take $$$ for your bets via paypal. Thanks.
Well there is no way you will be that slow. And your shorter race distances are plenty fast. I bet it's because of your recent running mileage - they make that a pretty significant factor. If it would only let you add bike & swim miles, maybe it'd give you a better number.
Yeah, it'll be an interesting experiment to see how IM training translates to a standalone marathon. And I don't think my body will suddenly forget that I ran 5,000 miles between 2014 and 2015.
I was sort of thinking about this last night after reading X's race report from his marathon PR. It would be interesting if they looked at number of miles run in the 2 years or 3 years or 5 years before the marathon. If you could plug in that number and how would that change things.
Well I've always read on the forums here that this is the key. So that has sort have been my strategy - eventually all the accumulated miles (not crazy miles, but decent enough) will pay off. Hasn't quite happened yet. Maybe someday.
I've thought about this a lot back when I, you know, raced and cared and stuff.
A few years ago I really nerded out one time and did this big analysis of my own PRs (not just marathon but everything from 5k-marathon.) The biggest predictor of running closest to lifetime PR times out of the variables I looked at was a very recent 300 mile month. The 2nd best predictor was mileage over the preceding 6 months.
Things like specific workouts, long runs and mileage over longer periods like 1 year or 2 year didn't seem to show much predictive value on their own.
However, I know that a 300-mile month is not something I can just go do--it in itself requires a good base of mileage and the right mix of workouts over a pretty long period of time for me to even be able and willing to pull off.
In other words, lifetime mileage and mileage over 2, 3, 5 years matters A LOT, but in terms of predicting race times it mostly matters only inasmuch as it essential to having the kind of month or 6 weeks of training that will squeeze out fast times.
Not to bum anyone out, and, as always, ymmv (quite literally).
Runners run
I was thinking about multi year base too. There are so many possible variables that could go into a calculator. Here's a good one.
Describe your approach to racing:
Each one adds another 3-5 minutes to the marathon finish time.
For me my best predictor is to look at a similar previous training block in my log. This will let me know what I can minimally expect and can be very reassuring and calming heading into a big race.
I must second Mikey's 300 month rule. They are magic. In fact I'm in the process of attempting one right now.