ZERO Last Mastertrack day. Then went to the Puyallup Fair. I've done some calculations on predicting my marathon time. The late Jim2, a well-respected and frequent contributor to the Runners World Online Forums, left a legacy of articles on the internet pertaining to running. One of the articles is on predicting a marathon time. One of the best ways to predict a marathon time is from your current 10k time and your average weekly mileage. I don't have a 10k time but I can calculate it from my 5k times. My average mileage for the past 12 weeks has only been 30 mpw. According to Jim2's article, you multiply your time by a factor based on your mileage. For 30 mpw, the factor is 5.5. For 40 mpw, it's 5.0. I did these calculations on a spreadsheet and came up with these possible goal times: Conservative Jim2 time: 3:36 (8:15/mi) Fastest Jim2 time: 3:13 (7:22/mi) Midpoint Jim2 time: 3:35 (7:49/mi) Some other goal/predictor times: Portland Marathon PR: 3:27 (7:55/mi) Marathon PR: 3:14 (7:24/mi) BQ: 3:10 (7:15/mi) McMillan Calculator: 3:02 (6:58/mi) Daniels VDOT table: 3:01 (6:56/mi) I feel like I have better than a 3:30 in me. I think I'll set my slowest goal to be a new Portland PR (3:27). My BQ marathon pace (7:15/mi) feels a bit fast, but it's so much slower than what the calculators predict and it is close the the fastest Jim2 predictor time. I'll set BQ as my fastest goal (3:10). The fastest Jim2 predictor would be a 1 minute PR for me, so this will be my main goal time (3:13). Who knows, maybe I'll readjust these goals as the race nears. | 