How fast?

The training methodology that I am using (Crossfit/Crossfit Endurance) emphasizes strength and shorter, faster runs. The biggest drawback to this methodology, in my opinion, is that I have no idea how fast I can/should run Skyline.

I’ve run enough races and workouts between 5K and 10K that I know about how fast to start out those distances. The correct pace just feels right. Sure, I might be off by 10 seconds-per-mile, but more often than not it’s just an indication of how good my legs are feeling that day. But the longest training run I ever do is 15K, and I do that less than once a month. The only time I run farther than that is in a race (my last was the Mt Diablo 25K on June 6).

Of course I’m competitive (at least with myself) and I don’t want to turn in a slower time than I am really capable of. But the real fear is that I start it off too fast and the last ten miles are excruciating, (or simply not achievable). I’ve been in this horrible place before in marathons, and I can tell you that it’s not a fun way to run a race. That conflict between ambition and ability that all athletes face is particularly troublesome in endurance races: going out too fast can easily mean a DNF.

What makes this process even harder for trail running is that a 50K on a flat and rolling course is a completely different race than a 50K that goes up to the top of a mountain and back down.

What I do have to go on is my previous performance relative to my peers, as well as my peers’ previous performances at Skyline. Fortunately most races post results online, and the Skyline 50K in particular is organized enough that they report split times at every aid station. Why is this useful? Well, it makes it easy for me to estimate what my time is likely to be if I run a reasonably good race. I do this as follows:

In the Mt Diablo 25K I placed 43rd overall. There were 182 finishers in that race, which put me at about 23rd percentile (23% of the racers finished before me). If I look at the 2008 results for Skyline, there were 120 finishers. The person at the 23rd percentile in that race was someone by the name of Adrian Jue, who finished 28th at 5:12:20. If I look at the 2007 results, the person in the 23rd percentile was Layne Kemp, finishing in 4:57:35. A quick glance over previous years shows that most of the times are in this range (except for 2005, perhaps it was really hot that year?).

From this I can speculate that I should target finishing in the 5:00 to 5:10 range. But how do I break this down further? If I take a look at the split times for 2007, I can see runners’ times at each of 6 aid stations (plus the finish). I want to be hitting the split times for the people who run at the pace I’m targeting, so I’m looking for folks who finished in the 5:00 to 5:10 region. Another piece of data that is provided is the person’s current place at the station. This is important because I want to use times from runners who gradually improved their overall place throughout the race. Why? Because I’m guessing those folks that are getting passed in the last half of the race are in pain and are not running the race they wanted to run. I know this race is going to hurt, but I want it to hurt on my terms, not on the course’s terms.

So I pick five or six of these “well-paced” runners and average their split times to get a sense of where I want to be. Now I have a rough plan for my race that I think is reasonable and has decent level of granularity. If I had more data on myself, I would use it, but given what I do have I think this is pretty good.

The most important thing to keep in mind with this sort of analysis is that it was all based on statistics (hand-wavy ones at that). And the thing about statistics is that while you can be reasonably sure that things will work out the way you’ve predicted, some percentage of the time you’ll get burned (just look at the 2005 results). So it’s important that I continue to keep my eye on the weather forecast, ask myself how strong I’m feeling as the race approaches, and have a backup plan in case things aren't feeling right out on the course.