Curious on a rule of thumb as well. I'm on a similar boat. Have a decent base, time for some speed work.

The only correlation I know is between 800 meters and marathon time. I think your 800 interval time = approximate marathon finish time.

You can google 'race time predictor' and find various tools that you can input one time/distance and get a prediction for another time. Some won't go as low as 400m. I guess because it is a very different type of race to long distance, there is still a big anaerobic part to 400 along with the aerobic. But you can find some that are more flexible.

For instance - https://www.omnicalculator.com/sports/race-predictor comes up with 21.49 from a 90 sec 400m. Dunno how that tallies with your thoughts?

Obviously take everything with a pinch of salt. When I trained on the track we did a regular Balke test which was basically how far can you run in 15 minutes and we got predicted times for other distances from that. I found those predictions pretty accurate. Ambitious but not impossible. The caveat with the predictions was always that you still have to do the right training to achieve that potential.

But I think anything around 15 minutes is a better predictor for other long distance running because it'll all be mainly aerobic and you can't bluff it with some anaerobic talent. If you are running for 15 minutes you might as well do a 5km and get a result rather than a prediction. But what I mean is any other long distance or even a 1500m/mile will probably be more accurate than a 400m time for a 5km prediction.

Totally incorrect

Stop overthinking it and just run intervals.

Not exactly sure what you're looking for, but this year I did a 15:47 5k, in workouts hard 400s were high 60s, hard 200s were ~32. I am 32. I think how fast you can do repeat miles is much more relevant for 5k performance than 200/400m. This year I added back in track workouts 1x a week along with a tempo and I am way faster than last year when I didn't (IM focus).

Right. With no specific speed training right now, I could probably throw down a 2:20 or so in my current shape. I'd be lucky to hit a 2:45 marathon in the same shape.

When I was in my PR shape (2:33), I could probably have run closer to 2:10 in the 800.

Perhaps it's my 800m interval times when I'm running 16 of them with 60s rest.

I did include the word "interval" in my description. I never said, anybody's fastest 800m time would be the marathon time.
The word interval does imply running multiples of that and at that same pace with X rest in between.
Not trying to be snarky, just saying.

Yasso 800s

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I can run a low-mid 20 min 5K when rested
400's I'm about 1:35-1:38 for 12 of them

Do you happen to know your peak speed? As I over-think this through, peak speed represents a mechanical limit, like a rev-limit on an engine. I used my watch, ran up, held for a bit, then shutdown.

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I've never thought about a top speed metric or even 100m speed, longest I've cared about is 200m. I wouldn't want to test out of fear of injury now, but I think I could do a 29s 200m but not much quicker. When I was a minute faster in the 5k I could do 24s 200m, but did a ton more speedwork and was 19.

Still incorrect.

My 800 interval would be 2:50 on a couple minutes rest (I don’t usually do 800s, I do 1k repeats and I’m extrapolating from that). The only way I run a 2:50 marathon now is if I rented an Uber for around 5k.

If I trained exclusively for a marathon for 3 months I could get to 3-305. Maybe.

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Dan Mayberry
Amateur a lot of things, professional a few things.

I did include the word "interval" in my description. I never said, anybody's fastest 800m time would be the marathon time. //

I think the set would be 52x800 with 1 second rests between. That would be a good approximation of you actual marathon speed, actually within 99.90%....(-;

Which provide way too much rest.

Cut that rest down to ~60 seconds and do 10-12 of them and you've got an argument.

Be nice to know your max speed as well - I'll explain why in a reply to NTC's data

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I put the numbers into a XLS sheet and started working with them. It's not a formula that evolved, but a profile calculation, based on WR 400M time and top sprinter speed as the denominator (both being 43's). I used inference for your top speed pegging it at 29 km/h. Cut and paste didn't work too well here but the takeaway is your (NTC's) %'s are well matched @ 65% and 67%. So good speed and endurance.


In comparison, my numbers are 45% and 54%. This means I am "training" or endurance limited, not mechanically or speed limited. So whoever said shut up and get your a$$ out there running intervals is correct : ).


jaretj #'s are approx the same ballpark as me, however without a top speed can't come up with %ratios there.


Name|400Mi|Top Speed km/H|Top Speed Sec/100M|5K time|5KPredicted|Interval %|Top Speed %
Shark 95 23 15.7 23 22.8 45.3 53.5
NTC 66 29 12.4 15.75 15.8 65.2 67.4

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This might help you

https://www.serpentine.org.uk/pages/advice_frank67.html

I've never done peak speed or 100's, at least since I was in my 20's.

The shortest recent track workout (from the last few years) had me at 41 seconds for many 200's and we were working on form drills. If I did one them all out with plenty of warm up beforehand I could probably get near 37 seconds.

That is the best guess I could give you on a top speed.

Frank is correct, if not a little crude - in that he hasn't tested the athlete before proposing a training plan. What I've taken out of this thread development is you can run some numbers, as ratios to world class, and see where a runner is at. Diagnostic.

Then tailor the training to suit the physical situation of the runner, balancing or biasing the runner to the event they are training for. He's done that but may be missing some benefit of customized application.

If I ran calcs on this VanNK guy out of South Africa my bet he would come out as an extremely balanced runner across the board - top speed through the ability to sustain speed (endurance).

My example, I'm out of balance because basically I'm a shit runner. If a lion were chasing me chances are I would drop a lot of runners. But my ability to sustain speed is well below where I should be, because tbt I'm pretty lazy!

So I need to take it from the beginning and run 400's for now, then after I can run say a doz at 1:xx, that matches my top speed ratio (or better) move onto for 800's etc.

In order to run fast...you have to be able to run fast : ) PS: Check out my instagram - I did intervals on a dirt track it was cool, feeling it this morning tho!

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Yes. So rather than go back and forth on this..

There is a workout called "Yasso 800s" that people use a lot, created by Bart Yasso. A few weeks out from your marathon, you run 10x800m on the track. You average the time from all of your 800s, and the time indicates what your marathon should be. For example, if I do 10x800m with 90sec rest and the average time for all of the 800s is 3:02 (3min, 2sec), then theoretically you can run a 3:02 marathon.

Runner's World pushed the Yasso 800 thing for a long time.. and still might, I don't know. It's thrown around a lot online as well. From my experience, it is not an indicator. I think a lot of people can get close, or coincidentally get around the time "time".. but in general, if there is any predictor worth a crap for the marathon, perhaps a solid half marathon race effort would be better.

If time is of the essence, perhaps going out and doing a 1mile time trial on a track, then using the McMillan race calculator would be a better way to determine your 5k time.

In ten years of running, I couldn't tell you what my top speed is.. or best time over 100 meters etc. I don't know anyone who has measured their max speed running, other than the occasional sprint past one of those "Your Speed Is" police signs on the side of the road.

Or you could just spend an hour and $25 on a Saturday morning and run a 5k.

Many years ago I trained with someone that had run 3:37 for 1500m so pretty sharp. He was much, much quicker than me. I only ever beat him once when he returned from being back in Aussie for a month not training and he had to stop to try up his shoes laces in a XC :) He decided to train for the London marathon. He got back into pretty good shape and ran one of the fastest short legs at the national road relays. I told him about this predictor and he wasn't impressed as he was pretty confident of running those in sub 2:20 but was pleased when he ran 2:3x for London.

That really is a bad indicator, I could do 10x800 in sun 2:30, but my marathon pb is ~2:45. My best predictor workout is a 20 mile long run with 4x5k, the average is the pace I can hold for the full.
To be clear, there is no correlation between 4 or 800 speed and marathon time. I bet Rudisha could have done 10x800 in sub 2:00 but probably wouldn’t break 2:40 in a marathon.

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Terrible Tuesday’s Triathlon