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Marathon by the numbers
PETE GLADDEN
Pete’s World
Published: November 23, 2020
I just love the marathon. I loved training for them back in my days as a competitive runner, I love preparing people for them today as a coach, I love talking and reading about them and I really love crunching the numbers on them.
Now I’ve recently been reading some interesting pieces about how the magical sub two-hour marathon barrier was broken, which was so darned fascinating that it prompted me to use that race as an example of how to utilize number crunching for marathon training.
Okay, so as you may or may not know, the world’s first sub-two-hour marathon was run on Oct. 14, 2019 by Kenyan Eliud Kipchoge, then a 31-your-old marathoner who was paced by a host of world-class runners to a mind-boggling 1:59:40 finish time.
I do have to say though that Kipchoge’s time doesn’t count as a world record because standard competition rules for pacing and fluids weren’t followed. Nonetheless, his effort was amazing, and so too are the numbers.
But before delving into the math involved in Kipchoge’s marathon, let me start with the numbers I typically deal with when marathon training down-to-earth normal folks like you and me then we’ll work our way up into the stratosphere and beyond.
A marathon is exactly 26.219 miles. So to run a sub five-hour marathon - a time many first timers aspire to - you must run under 11:27 minute/miles for each of those 26.219 miles. To run a sub four-hour marathon - a time many recreational marathoners aspire to - you must average just under 8:15 minute/miles. For a sub three-hour marathon - a huge goal for many seasoned marathoners - that average drops down to 6:50 minute/miles.
Okay, now let’s work our way up into the stratospheric side of marathon by the numbers, numbers I don’t typically deal with but numbers I still have a lot of fun dabbling in. To run a sub 2:30-hour marathon - a winning time for elite women pre 2000 - you’d need to run at least 5:43 minute/miles.
To do a sub 2:10 marathon - a winning time for elite men pre 2000 - you’d need to average a smidge under five minute miles.
Then there’s the tropospheric numbers behind some of the winning marathon times seen over the last ten years. World-class men have gone sub 2:05 (sub 4:50 minute miles), and world-class women have gone sub 2:20 (5:20 minute miles and under).
It’s those tropospheric numbers that prompted talk about someone finally attaining the holy grail of marathoning, breaking two hours - which meant maintaining at least 4:35 minute/miles.
And on Oct. 14, 2019 Kipchoge bettered that pacing requirement by averaging 4:33.5 minute/miles.
All right, now for the fun let’s play around with Kipchoge’s numbers. To run a 4:33 mile, he needed to average 1:08:25 per quarter. What is a quarter? A quarter is one 400-meter lap at your local track - where four quarters equal one mile.
Now think about that. Kipchoge essentially ran 105.5 quarters (105.5 laps) at just over a 1:08 lap pace for his marathon.
Now in my best days as a runner, I might have been able to run one or two consecutive 1:08 quarters. But never in those days could I have put together four consecutive 1:08 quarters to equal Kipchoge’s average minute/mile marathon pacing.
Conversely, we can soften the focus and look at Kipchoge’s 5k, 10K and half marathon times within his marathon. He was at 14:10 for the 5K, 28:20 at 10K, and 56:47 at 20K (1.09K short of a half marathon).
Okay, so by now you may be labeling me a numbers nerd. And to that I plead guilty. find breaking down those kinds of fantastical marathon numbers fun little exercises.
But the heart of the aforementioned exercise is this: It’s a great example of how to figure out training and pacing strategies. Goal marathons can be broken down and scrutinized from the quarter mile level all the way up to the half marathon level. And such scrutinization gives you get a pretty clear picture of where your training needs to be in order to get to where you want to go.
So if you’re a marathoner who’s looking to run a personal best…be a nerd and start your training by looking at the numbers.