Day 2,867: Drydock + marathon prediction

Like the two previous marathons I've run, it's taken me several days to get back to some semblance of running form. Today is the fourth day since the Marine Corps Marathon and it's the first day that I've felt like I had my leg speed back.

I'm actually going to continue taking it easy until I feel like I can run normally. Probably only a few more days at the most.

Today there was an interesting post in Slate that I want to make sure I keep here. It's an updated marathon pace calculator. At its most basic it looks at your half marathon time multiplied by 2.19. Another pace calculator uses 2.085 as a multiplier to calculate your marathon time and the same multiple to predict 10K performance using a 5K race time.

The longer format asks you how many miles you've been running a week and your race time from two races (or one if you've only done one). It also asks you the race day conditions, such as a hilly course or if it was hot outside.

So I typed in 55 miles a week to be conservative. I used my race time from this March's Publix Georgia Half Marathon. I ran it in 1:52:16. I selected hilly conditions.

And what did it predict?

It predicted a time less than two minutes off what I actually ran. Something to think about.

Update: If you just use the 2.19 multiplier to my 2014 half marathon time, you get a race time that looks like 4:04:48 -- a time that's pretty close to my 2010 Chicago Marathon time of 4:06:39.

I know it's just a formula but to me the new pace calculator also shows the impact of the extra miles I logged in my attempt to break the four hour mark.