As most of you know I was pretty exhilarated with my performance at the 2003
Philadelphia Marathon. I just can’t believe how far off my prediction was.
I am usually pretty accurate at predicting my race times, sometimes being so
close that if the prognostication was overly pessimistic I have been accused of
sandbagging or lowering expectations too much. I attribute my accuracy to a
three category approach I have always used to try and gauge my fitness before
an event.
I have always believed that to run your best a runner must have three things
going for them and each scales from 1 to 100 points:
The first is weight, which becomes more important as the distance lengthens. If
you think of a marathon as 50,000 steps then every extra pound you are carrying
is 50,000 pounds of stress on your legs. Weight is a personal thing based on
many factors including your bone density. What is a fit weight for one person
may not be so for another but I have gotten to know what my correct weight
ranges should be. Going into Philadelphia my weight was very worrisome. It had
been on an inexorable climb since September. I gave myself about a 30 or 35 (of
100) .
The second is leg strength which again is far more important as the distance
lengthens. The amount of hills whether up and down accentuates the need for leg
strength . While I was never sure exactly how long my long runs had been, they
were taking well over three hours and I felt better after each long run. I was
also doing significant weight training to strengthen my quads and hamstrings so
I give my leg strength about 85.
The final is aerobic capacity which is more important in the shorter races.
Aerobic capacity can be very helpful in predicting times because it enables you
to know what pace you are comfortable with. I had a good idea of what my
training run paces were and combined with mediocre race times gave me no more
than 40 or 50 rating.
There is a fourth variable that can be added and this is miscellaneous factors
that combine intangibles like attitude and race strategy with uncontrollables
like weather and health.
I think the miscellaneous factors again matter more when the race is longer.
One of my friends absolutely lives for colder running conditions which has
always been my preference.
So based on everything I knew, I had no reason to think I could go any faster
than 4:10 at best and I was starting to scale that back. My attitude was pretty
good and the weather was great which took some time off the predictor.
The secret of course, is to get everything working together at the same time
and find the perfect day and the perfect distance and you can then have your
perfect race. While Philly was far from a perfect race for me, the final time
was in comparison to my predicting indicators.
If I was 20 pounds lighter, with better aerobic capacity and similar leg
strength the miscellaneous factors would have to be pretty strongly negative
for me to not significantly beat this time. I hope I can test that one in my
next marathon.
