Jack Daniels, you magnificient bastard!

Triathlon Forum
1

Not the drink, the running coach.

A little Friday fun, how close are your Daniels VDOT race prediction times to your actual times?

Going just from this year: Daniels predicts—I actually run

5k 17:17 17:20

10k 35:52 35:50

Half-Marathon 1:19:18 1:18:31

Marathon 2:45:47 2:45:27

So the least accurate one was off by ~3-4 seconds/mile, and 3 of the 4 were ridiculously close.

2

damn. not the direction i had hoped this post was headed. the other jack is a magnificent bastard as well, perhaps even a gentleman!

3

Really close for me too this year in 5k, 10k, and 1/2, but using a lot lower VDOT level, unfortunately!

4

How were you determining your Vdot? Did you do the Q workouts he suggests for the race distances you did?

FWIW, I find that if I do an I pace workout such as 6x1200m (3’ rest), then use the avg pace for all 6 intervals to determine my Vdot, it is pretty darn accurate at predicting my race times for half marathon and shorter.

5

I only have a net (very!) uphill 10k to use, so I chose a very satisfying 10k in an Oly tri as a baseline.

10k 42:15 vdot=48

Then from other tris:

5k - vdot 20:39 - actual 21:05

13.1m - vdot 1:34:53 - actual 1:40:24
13.1m - vdot 1:34:53 - actual 1:42:53

Seems pretty reasonable. If I ran a half marathon, I’d be targeting 1:36:00.

6

besides buying his book, where do I find the JD race time predictions?

7

www.runbayou.com/jackd
.

8

Here’s a link to the tables.

http://www.coacheseducation.com/endur/jack-daniels-nov-00.htm

9

I’m on the other side of the bell curve (i.e.: slower than most STers) and mine come up almost bang on:
5K: 23:09 23:05
10k: 48:01 48:35
1/2M: 1:46:27 1:46:52

Pretty damn close.

10

No numbers to quote right now, but back in '04-‘05 I used VDOT to set my training paces for the workouts (also from Daniels’ Running Formula) building up to spring racing. The training paces were perfect for me - challenging but doable.

I don’t remember how well they predicted my race times, but I was very happy with my progress that year.

11

Agreed. Daniel’s VDOT half-maration prediction time was 1:31:35, and actual time ran was 1:31:50. And this is running a half marathon off 10K training - so I really suffered those last 3-4 miles. Good stuff.