[bluegoose]

My wife has one of this guys (Jeff Galloway) books that she used to get ready for her marathon this year. While I think some of the stuff he says is whacko, this seems like a decent concept to determine race pacing. I read this on the Active.com website this morning:

Here’s how to do the the "magic mile" time trial (MM)

1. On your MM time trial, don’t run all-out from the start—just a little faster than you have been running.
2. Go to a track, or other accurately measured course. One mile is 4 laps around a track.
3. Warm up by walking for 5 minutes, then running a minute and walking a minute for 6-10 minutes, then jogging an easy 800 meter (half mile or two laps around a track)
4. Do 4 acceleration-gliders. These are listed in the "Drills" chapter of my books. Don’t sprint.
5. Walk for 3-4 minutes
6. Start the MM. Run fast—for you—for 4 laps.
7. Start the stopwatch at the beginning of the mile and stop it at the end of the 4th lap.
8. Warm down by reversing the warmup.
9. A school track is the best venue. Don’t use a treadmill because they tend to be notoriously un-calibrated, and often tell you that you ran farther or faster than you really did.
10. On each successive MM, try to adjust pace in order to run a faster time than you’ve run before
11. Use the "Galloway Prediction Formula" above to see what time is predicted in the goal races

How hard should I run the test
During the first month of the program, you could run the magic mile once a week, in the middle of a Tuesday or Thursday run. The first one should be only slightly faster than you normally run. With each successive MM, pick up the pace and beat your previous best time. By the 4th one, you should be running fairly close to your current potential.


Galloway’s Prediction Formula:
Take your one mile time trial and adjust to find a potential fast pace for you, in each race:
5K—add 33 seconds
10K—multiply by 1.15
half marathon—multiply by 1.2
marathon—multiply by 1.3

Example: You ran a fast (for you) one mile time trial and the time was 10:00
10:33 is your current potential for a very hard pace in a 5K—per mile
11:30 is your current potential for a very hard pace in a 10K—per mile
12:00 is your current potential for a very hard pace in a half marathon—per mile
13:00 is your current potential for a very hard pace in a marathon—per mile

Long run pace: add two minutes to the predicted marathon pace: 15 min/mi

I ran a hard-ish mile last week and finished in 7:13, although I think I may have gone a little bit faster than that, as the iPod is less accurate at higher speeds. Given his formula, that would put me at a 7:46/mile pace for a 5K equaling 24:05 5K. I turned in a 23:53 the other day for our 5K challenge, but think I could go a bit faster than that on a flat course. Not a bad prediction, really.

I would be interested in hearing how this formula works for anyone else that is running right now.