This will
be my first marathon, and although I ran my first mountain ultra race earlier
this year it will be totally different to do 42k on asphalt. That aside, I have
started to think about what kind of race time I should target.
There are a
couple of race time calculators that let you estimate your race time based on
another race time you have done for a different distance. I did my first real half
marathon last year and was very pleased with my time: 1:28:29. Based on this RW’s
race calculator (which more precisely should be called Pete Riegel’s race
calculator since it is based on a formula by Pete Riegel) predicts that I should
be able to do a marathon in 3:04:29. The Mackmillan running calculator is a
bit more pessimistic (or realistic?) and predicts 3:06:13. Then I found another
method called the Yasso 800’s. I went to my local track and ran 10 x 800 meter
intervals as fast as I could. My worst 800 meter time was 2 minutes 56 seconds.
According to the Yasso 800 theory this should indicate that I’m capable of
running a marathon at 2 hours and 56 minutes: Just convert minutes to hours and
seconds to minutes. According to Coach Jeff at RunnersConnect you should add
approximately 5 minutes to this time, giving me a prediction of a 3:02:00
marathon – still a fairly optimistic estimate. (By the way, I
include a blog reply that I posted on Coach Jeff’s article at RunnersConnect
below).
I suspect that
my biggest problem will be the unfamiliar hammering from running on asphalt. I’m not going to do any training on hard surface in advance, and I
will quit the race if I start to feel serious pain in a knee or a
hip. I’m not going to ruin myself on this event! Apart from that, stamina should not be a
problem based on my experience form the mountain ultra race. My personal
estimate, based on my gut feeling, is that I could be able to run at best a 4:30/km pace,
resulting in approximately 3:10:00 as my marathon finish time. Allowing for some unforseen problems and delays and the fact that it is my first marathon, I have decided to set a target for 3:15:00. Now it remains to see who has the
best predictive powers; Pete Riegel, Mackmillan, Bart Yasso, Coach Jeff… or me!
---o---
[copy of a reply I
posted at RunnersConnect]
Hi Jeff,
thanks for an interesting article!
Your link
seems to have 'expired' and I'm not able to find any (original) source saying
that Yasso 800's primary function is to
act as a predictor for your marathon time. In what I believe must be the
original article, dated 28 September 2001, Bart Yasso is quoted as saying; "I've been doing this particular workout
for about 15 years, and it always seems to work for me. If I can get my 800s
down to 2 minutes 50 seconds, I'm in 2:50 marathon shape. If I can get down to
2:40, I can run a 2:40 marathon. I'm shooting for a 2:37 marathon right now, so
I'm running my 800s in 2:37." The
article then goes on to describe the Yasso 800's as a work out method aimed at
getting you up to speed for your target marathon pace.
I want to
comment on the discussion about correlation as this is a difficult concept with
some common misconceptions. First of all, the lemons/road accidents example is
not relevant. It's a "fun fact" example of correlation without any
causality - a coincident. You will easily be able to find such coincidental
correlations between data sets if you have access to a lot of data sets and
carefully select the variables and limit the data intervals you look at. The
Yasso 800s and marathon finish times obviously have a correlation with some
sort of causality involved, and it's not coincidental. If the best
approximation is a factor of 60 (converting minutes to hours and seconds to
minutes) is another story. And I haven't found any scientific research about
just how strong the correlation is, but I'm sure we can all agree that a
certain correlation would be measured if such research was carried out.
From
Wikipedia: The conventional dictum that "correlation does not imply
causation" means that correlation cannot be used to infer a causal
relationship between the variables. This dictum should not be taken to mean
that correlations cannot indicate the potential existence of causal relations.
However,
the causes underlying the correlation, if any, may be of several different
types - six to be precise (Jaccard, J., & Turrisi, R. (2003). Interaction
Effects in Multiple Regression). In the case of Yasso 800s and marathon times I
suspect we experience what is called a spurious relationship: "A spurious
relationship is one in which X and Y are related, but only because of a common
cause, Z. There is no formal causal link
between X and Y." What is the Z in
this case? VO2max, running efficiency, max speed, endurance etc. - such
parameters will all influence both the Yasso 800 and the marathon time. Even if
VO2max is more important for the Yasso 800 than for the marathon time (I take
your word for that!), it will probably have some effect also on your ability to
run a marathon. Similarly, your stamina is important for your ability to finish
10x800 meters even if it is more important during the marathon.
So to
summarize, I believe there is no formal causality between Yasso 800 and
marathon times, but there is probably a spurious relationship based on the
effect from common physical parameters as VO2max, running efficiency, stamina
etc. How strong the correlation is will require some formal research, and hence
the predictive power of the Yasso 800s is, for now, based on somewhat anecdotal
evidence. To what extent the Yasso 800 is a good workout strategy in order to
improve your marathon time is something I leave for the experts to discuss. If
you were my coach Jeff, I would surly listen to you :-) For what it's worth, I believe modern research
shows that interval training (like the Yasso 800s) is a great place to start
for untrained beginners. For more experienced long distance runners they could
probably still be good for speed training and increasing running economy, but I
follow your reasoning that there is probably better ways to achieve this for a
marathon runner.
