Do Stuff QuicklyMarathon Newsletter Week 9
Dear Marathon Runner,
Week 9, and like they said in the RW newsletter this week, we're in the highest mileage quarter of the 16 weeks leading to the race. If you take a look back at Week 5, I outlined the proportion of mileage most folks will do in each quarter, and this is the whopper with 29% of your workload. Your longest runs will peak, and it's all about getting safely to the highest load, before you start to taper, around the end of week 13.
As usual, here's the weekly round up. 678 of you listed for VLM now, and 495 of you ran last week (that's a record!), with a median mileage of 30.41 (up another half a mile, nicely does it!), and a median long run of 13.95 (up 0.75 on last week - watch that go skyward in the next four weeks). Here's Our Graham with a quick reminder of how this all breaks down by group:
| Week 5 summary | 3:00 | 3:15 | 3:30 | 3:45 | 4:00 | 4:15 | 4:30 | 4:45 | 5:00 |
| Race Pace | 6:52 | 7:27 | 8:01 | 8:35 | 9:10 | 9:44 | 10:18 | 10:53 | 11:27 |
| Total Mileage | 52.3 | 34.3 | 26.0 | 32.1 | 25.6 | 27.4 | 24.5 | 21.9 | 18.9 |
| Average Pace (mins/mile) | 7:28 | 7:57 | 8:22 | 8:32 | 9:09 | 9:38 | 9:52 | 10:21 | 10:29 |
| Longest Run | 18.3 | 13.8 | 13.1 | 15.6 | 13.1 | 13.2 | 12.9 | 13.5 | 12.1 |
| Longest Run Pace (mins/mile) | 7:33 | 7:54 | 8:28 | 8:36 | 9:14 | 9:53 | 10:02 | 10:04 | 10:40 |
Some interesting things to note here. Most of the sub-4:00's are back at it again after an easy week., although the 3:15 group seem to have all gone on holiday. The 4:00's-and-above seem to have chilled out their pace whilst increasing mileage - I'm very proud, although the 5:00's seem to switched the turbo boost back on this week. Ten points to Gryffindor for the 4:15 group this week for doing their long run at slower than race pace.
I'm very lucky to have a shedload of random mid-newsletter tips to choose from this week, thanks to this thread - do visit and contribute your suggestions. My favourite silly one has to be "Don't worry about nail varnish clashing with those next to you" (Ultra Dunc), but there are some sensible ones there too.
So for this weeks bit of statistical poking, I'm going to look at a few ways in which your age has an impact on your running - and I'm telling you up front, there's good news for everyone. First up, I looked at how many marathon performances there are in each of our regular pace categories, broken down by age. PLEASE NOTE - IF YOU PLOT THESE VALUES IN AN X-Y GRAPH, THEY FORM SOMETHING OF A HILL. BEING ON THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF IT DOES NOT MAKE YOU OVER IT.
| Percentage of Performances | 3:00 | 3:15 | 3:30 | 3:45 | 4:00 | 4:15 | 4:30 | 4:45 | 5:00 |
| 20-25 | 0.6 | 2.4 | 1.5 | 1.0 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 | 0.8 | 0.0 |
| 25-30 | 15.3 | 14.5 | 12.8 | 10.4 | 10.1 | 8.0 | 9.5 | 10.5 | 12.9 |
| 30-35 | 27.4 | 18.4 | 17.6 | 20.6 | 16.8 | 19.0 | 17.7 | 18.5 | 18.0 |
| 35-40 | 26.8 | 27.5 | 26.4 | 30.1 | 30.3 | 25.0 | 28.7 | 23.0 | 21.3 |
| 40-45 | 19.1 | 22.0 | 21.9 | 20.9 | 23.5 | 24.7 | 21.1 | 23.8 | 24.2 |
| 45-50 | 6.4 | 10.2 | 14.0 | 11.2 | 9.4 | 13.2 | 10.4 | 13.3 | 12.9 |
| 50-55 | 4.5 | 4.3 | 4.0 | 4.0 | 6.1 | 5.8 | 7.3 | 7.3 | 5.1 |
| 55-60 | 0.0 | 0.8 | 1.8 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 2.5 | 3.1 | 2.8 | 3.4 |
| Before peak period | 15.9 | 35.3 | 31.9 | 32.1 | 28.3 | 28.3 | 28.7 | 52.8 | 52.2 |
| After peak period | 56.7 | 37.3 | 41.6 | 37.8 | 41.5 | 46.7 | 42.5 | 23.4 | 23.6 |
For example, 30.3% of 4:00 marathons are run by the 35-40 group. Across the board, the peak age for running is 30-45. You could argue that these figures are skewed by the fact that the population of FE as a whole will follow a similar curve (e.g. we have 3874 Fetchies in the 20-25 group, 5865 in the 35-40 group, and less than 3000 over 50's). However, there's a counter argument that FE is naturally representative of runners as a whole, and a further thickening of the plot to do with the age demographics of people who use the internet. Anyway, quit moaning, there'll be another newsletter next week :-) I've used bold to highlight the peak group for each race time, and the bottom two rows of the table show how many performances happen before and after that activity peak. Generally, there are far more performances after that peak five year period than before, so carry on running, and the times will still come. And if that's not good enough for you, remember those 3000 Fetchies who are over fifty and still knocking out marathons! This summer I had the privilege to run a 10k with a lady in her eighties, and she was having a great time - I hope you'll continue to do so too.
I also thought I'd look at how mileage varies with age. I took the average figure for each race group, and looked at how the percentage figure varied by age. Confused? Lets look at the table first (apologies to the under 25's and over 55's for lack of data):
| Percentage of Average Mileage | 3:00 | 3:15 | 3:30 | 3:45 | 4:00 | 4:15 | 4:30 | 4:45 | 5:00 | Avge |
| 25-30 | 96.2 | 96.3 | 88.3 | 101.4 | 81.8 | 92.9 | 91.7 | 99.8 | 95.1 | 93.7 |
| 30-35 | 96.3 | 101.0 | 84.3 | 91.2 | 96.2 | 97.9 | 99.5 | 98.4 | 90.9 | 95.1 |
| 35-40 | 103.7 | 98.9 | 94.3 | 98.6 | 94.1 | 97.5 | 97.0 | 94.8 | 103.8 | 98.1 |
| 40-45 | 104.6 | 106.5 | 101.1 | 100.8 | 99.6 | 96.9 | 98.2 | 103.9 | 107.4 | 102.1 |
| 45-50 | 99.1 | 93.9 | 115.7 | 97.4 | 110.1 | 107.5 | 110.6 | 104.2 | 102.7 | 104.6 |
| 50-55 | 103.4 | 116.3 | 110.6 | 118.2 | 107.3 | 103.0 | 98.9 | 108.2 |
For example, 50-55 year-olds who run 3:30 marathons run about 16.3% more than the average mileage, whilst 25-30 year-olds run about 11.7% less than average. The numbers are a little bit loose (the number of runners in each group is fairly small), but they produce some nice averages that seem to bear out experience - that as we get older, we run more miles for the same results. Thankfully, the figures aren't crazily different - only 8% more mileage for the 50-55 group, so there's no need for anyone to feel they should be running themselves into the ground.
I feel like I've taken a few leaps of faith in producing this weeks data, but as always, I'm having great fun with it. Another 7 weeks to go - your suggestions for future study are gratefully received. If you're still enjoying the newsletter, please do some of these things:
- Visit the VLM Fetchpoint site: http://londonmarathonfetch22.webs.com/
- Send a link to this newsletter to friends and club mates, post it on your club forum, tell *EVERYONE* about it.
- Add a prediction of your VLM time, even if it's just an estimate, and keep logging your training.
- Let me know if there's anything you'd like me to try to cover in future weeks - there's a discussion thread
Happy Running,
Ian Williams aka 'Fetch'
Editor, www.fetcheveryone.com
