has anyone found a rule of thumb for what kind of 50M pace can be held, by looking at one’s marathon pace? if someone can run an 8 min mile pace in a mara, would the forecast pace in a 50M be 10 min mile, for example?
I can run 50 on flat terrain about 20-25% slower than a moderate marathon pace. The issue is, most 50 milers aren’t on flat terrain. The last 50 I did was the 54 mile “long” stage in the 1999 Marathon Des Sables. It crossed some huge dune systems in the Sahara and that was *very *slow going. I’m the guy in the yellow shorts, #223.
As Tom says, terrain is a big factor. For a true trail 50 your pace is likely to be all over the place depending on the hills and trail conditions, and you need to let the terrain have its say and just cooperate with it. But even for a flat 50 miler, predicting a pace from marathon pace would be very difficult, especially the first time, since you really don’t know what is going to happen in the last 20 miles. Which means, whatever you think you might be able to hold, you should probably go slower than that in the beginning. And by the beginning I mean the first 50K or so. Are you asking in the context of setting a goal for the 50 miler, or to determine a sensible pace to start out at? The former probably isn’t a great idea, and as far as the latter, I’d say be ultra conservative. Pun intended.
I have always heard the rule of thumb is start slow than slowdown. The slow pace at the beginning will be fast as the end.
I run about a 8/pace for a marathon. Give or take a little. I ran 9:20 for a flat 50 miler on mostly asphalt, 10:45 on a hilly obstructed trail (I am a girl don’t make too much fun of me). If this is your first, a goal could be to keep the time you are stopped at rest stops (for food, drink whatever) and walking to a minimum. I am still new to this and that is something I hope to master and therefore improve upon my PR this spring.
I am new to ultramarathons, but just to add a data point, I ran a hilly marathon in 3:41 about 1 1/2 months before I finished my first 50 miler in 9:35. I finished comfortably and took the advice of many of the veterans and walked anything that looked like a hill.
As previously noted, your average ultra is run on significantly more challenging terrain than your average marathon, so its difficult to judge. I would say if you are in reasonable ultra shape (ie you’ve done some ultra-specific training), multiply your marathon time by 2.5 and you’ll be pretty close.
I ran a stand-alone rolling marathon in 3:25 last october, and then ran 9:50-something at the JFK 50-miler in November. No training runs over 2 hours (other than the marathon), so I definitely ran a little slower than had I done a few longer runs.
I ran the Ultraman run course (52 miles) in 8:40 something. It avg’d to just over 10 min miles. It was on the IM Hawaii bike course, so rolling on ashphalt.
I would like to think I could run a marathon at around an 8:30 min mile pace.
I do more long training, though.
My legs were pretty trashed at the start from 2 days of intense biking, so I started OFF at 10 min miles and everyone left me in the dust. I think conservative pacing is definitely a key thing.
I’m not sure what pace you should be running but I can add another data point to the others. My best marathon is 3:34 (IMLP) but I have not done a standalone marathon since high school, so I’m not sure what time I could put up. I’ve done only one standalone 50-mile trail ultra that was somewhat hilly and fairly technical. I finished that in 8:31 and actually felt I was a bit too conservative with my pace at the start. I shunned most others’ advice and did not walk most of the hills and ended up with a decent time. If I could do it over again I’d probably start just a touch faster to see if I could hold on. Good luck!
As some of the other posts allude to, the terrain in an ultra can be much different than a stand-alone marathon which makes it even more difficult to predict a target pace. What I would suggest is using your ‘ridiculously easy’ pace as a starting pt. We all have that recovery run pace which seems effortless, that we could run for days and that’s what worked for me.
For reference, I did my 1st ultra (JFK 50 Mile '05) off of decent run fitness as I had just come off a marathon PR 13-days prior to JFK (NYC). My o’all pace for JFK worked out to about an 8:30 /mile, but the early parts of the course do not dictate an overly fast time as the terrain for the 15 miles is SIGNIFICANTLY harder than NYC, while the 2nd ½ isn’t quite so bad.
My o’all pace ended up being about 2mins slower /mile than my open marathon pace and even if the course was pancake flat, I don’t know that my pacing strategy would have been terribly different. The course at JFK is so hilly/technical in the early stages that I honestly have no idea how the leaders ran through it as fast as they did. My pace for the 2nd ½ of the race was over a minute faster /mile than the 1st ½ and when I initially reflected on this, thought I should have pushed harder in the earlier stages. With that, I think going out so conservatively (which honestly wasn’t too conservative considering the terrain) helped me in the latter stages. If that particular portion of the course was easier, I may have been tempted to push harder in the earlier miles.
My full race report from JFK is posted here if you’re curious.
If you’re looking for specifics and how these would relate to you, using the McMillan Calculator I ran at the top end of my ‘recovery’ jog pace based off of my marathon PB. Popping your 3:30 marathon (8min mile) pace into that calculator returns a pace of 10:01.
Best of luck!
I ran a 10:07 50-miler and 2 weeks later ran a 3:16 marathon. Just about 3x longer.
Now the marathon had hundreds of feet elevation gain and was on asphalt, while the ultra had 10K elevation again and was on rocky and rooty trails.
I loved the comment – start slow and then slowdown. I wish I would have taken that advice.