How close can I get to three hours for a FM?

David S. Pumpkins wrote:

I like to imagine you were at mile 23, shaking your fists, grimacing and muttering "Pumpkins!" Under your breath over and over.

LOL, no. Only because Mile 23 was the closest I came to a 7:00 with a 6:59. I was ACE for 18 miles, slightly fading from 19-22, but 23 was the truth bringer. My legs were done on that mile. Somehow I found a second-wind and closed out with 6:39/6:48/6:40/6:13(0.52). But you damn well better believe letsrun.com was on my mind five minutes after the finish line.

whatsupchucky wrote:

congrats, but stop being a whiny little b!tch. seriously.

Highlight of my day!

Great race...

By the way 26.52 on a GPS is about right for a certified course. That's about what people usually get on their GPS when they run Boston or NYC or any other strictly measured course. Not sure it's because of the tangents or GPS devices are not quite as accurate.

Congrats...

PTF wrote:

Great race...

By the way 26.52 on a GPS is about right for a certified course. That's about what people usually get on their GPS when they run Boston or NYC or any other strictly measured course. Not sure it's because of the tangents or GPS devices are not quite as accurate.

Congrats...

Thanks man. Most Strava measurements of the local races around (Memphis, Jackson, Nashville) here are 26.2-26.4. This one runs 26.4-26.6. It does have an inordinate number of turns. I can't speak on Boston/NYC, so I'll take your word on it.

three hour attempt wrote:

David S. Pumpkins wrote:

I like to imagine you were at mile 23, shaking your fists, grimacing and muttering "Pumpkins!" Under your breath over and over.

LOL, no. Only because Mile 23 was the closest I came to a 7:00 with a 6:59. I was ACE for 18 miles, slightly fading from 19-22, but 23 was the truth bringer. My legs were done on that mile. Somehow I found a second-wind and closed out with 6:39/6:48/6:40/6:13(0.2). But you damn well better believe letsrun.com was on my mind five minutes after the finish line.

Fixed it for you. Note in the article that most GPS runners of the world would claim that every marathon course is .14 if they listen to their GPS watch. And everyone just so happens to think your race is .15 long. Coincidence? I'll stick with the physically measured certified distance.

BTW, The problem is worse on a course with turns not because of poor tangent running but because the GPS has more difficulty the less linearly you run.

Even on your good days you keep going with those excuses.

David S. Pumpkins wrote:

Even on your good days you keep going with those excuses.

And even on *your* good days, you seem to have trouble looking at the data in context. I'm well aware of the mechanics and fallacies of the GPS, but thank you for sharing the article. My point is this, and please try to follow along so I don't feel the need to rehash multiple times in multiple ways: In my brief running career, I have run three different HM courses and two FM courses. My GPS HM results are all in the 13.15-13.18 range, which extrapolates to a 26.30-26.36. Your article notes that 26.34 is the average from London. My other FM course was a 26.29 and 26.31. These are consistent numbers from a fairly dedicated tangent runner.

My GPS result from this course was a 26.52. Other runners I have spoken with, as well as multiple online reviews, all state that this course runs consistently long. I see two possibilities, or a combination of both: the ordinate amount of turns demands more perfection from the runner, or the course really is slightly long. Regardless of which scenario is true (and it may very well be that it's the turns), this adds sufficiently difficulty to the course to make it a minute longer than it really needs to be. I guess what I'm trying to say, and I didn't do a good job of it earlier, is that if this course were more similar to others I have run, I feel like I would have gone sub-2:57. That's all.

David S. Pumpkins wrote:

Somehow I found a second-wind and closed out with 6:39/6:48/6:40/6:13(0.2)....Fixed it for you.

That's not how it works, and it was incorrect for you to adjust that. Assuming that my GPS was off 1%, those mile splits are understood to be within 1% of the time it took to run one mile. The same would hold true for the balance of what was left, which according to GPS estimation, was 0.52 miles, again within 1%. After running for what the GPS thought was 26 miles, it started a new lap count. During which, I held 6:13/mi for approximately 0.52 miles (or 3 minutes 15 seconds), not 0.2 miles. Please try to understand that before responding. I feel that this is an easy one.

Great job OP! Most folks like to play it safe when it comes to the marathon, so I have to say that I'm impressed that you went "all in" in the first half and committed yourself to a solid sub 3. That takes some balls when you're traveling in somewhat uncharted territory. You had a slight fade over the second half, but certainly nothing to complain about. It just means you gave the race everything you had. I can tell that you have the right attitude for wringing everything out of your fitness on marathon day, and mental toughness is key to running the best marathon you can.

Things inevitably get really tough in the final miles of a marathon, and those who lack that mental toughness resort to walking. I see it every race, and I'm sure there are some who truly have exceeded their physical capacity, but I am also sure that there are some who could have kept the momentum going if they had not been defeated mentally. In that respect, I have to say it was a great strategy to come on to the LRC forum and generate some interest in your race and to attract a bunch of naysayers. It created a challenge and motivator, and gave you no "out" when came down to race day. So long as you had any strength left in your legs, easing up on the pace was NOT an option. Well played, OP.

Finally, I would like to tout the accuracy of the 10+10 workout. The sample size of my data pool is admittedly small, but it has proven to be extremely accurate for anyone I know who has tried it. Though improbable based on the other data I had seen, when you nailed that workout, that's when I thought it just might be possible.

You've done the work. You've given us enough data to verify your results. And you've emerged victorious.

Enjoy this moment, OP! You are now a Sub 3 Expert!

OP you're acting like an a$$ about the distance. Most marathons consistently measure long by GPS. Beyond just the added required distance for certification, your particular course may have buildings/bridges or other obstacles that consistently interfere with GPS watches.

Stop giving yourself credit for a 2:57 effort. And especially stop saying that around other runners. They'll immediately peg you as an arrogant whiny b!tch you seem to be.

Let it go.

Sub 3 Expert wrote:

Finally, I would like to tout the accuracy of the 10+10 workout. The sample size of my data pool is admittedly small, but it has proven to be extremely accurate for anyone I know who has tried it. Though improbable based on the other data I had seen, when you nailed that workout, that's when I thought it just might be possible.

You've done the work. You've given us enough data to verify your results. And you've emerged victorious.

Enjoy this moment, OP! You are now a Sub 3 Expert!

Dude, you came around and saw what I saw as well. I might not be as fast as some of these other guys, but I know how to crunch my numbers. That 10+10 is just as reliable as my HM * 2.1013 conversion, so you were exactly right. In the absence of a good HM time due to heat, I will now come to rely on it just as strongly. By GPS, I went 6:43.4/mi on race day. By GPS, I went 6:45.1/mi on the final eight miles of the 10+10 (recall that I had difficulty adjusting the first two miles and have a habit of not checking pace between miles). My temperature adjusted HM pace and HM conversion factor left me in the dark since I improvised and increased my mpw 20% the final half of the training cycle. Long live the 10+10 predictor.

whatsupchucky wrote:

OP you're acting like an a$$ about the distance. Most marathons consistently measure long by GPS. Beyond just the added required distance for certification, your particular course may have buildings/bridges or other obstacles that consistently interfere with GPS watches.

Stop giving yourself credit for a 2:57 effort. And especially stop saying that around other runners. They'll immediately peg you as an arrogant whiny b!tch you seem to be.

Let it go.

I love it! Keep it coming! This thread shows that you clearly know what you are talking about!

three hour attempt wrote:

PTF wrote:

Great race...

By the way 26.52 on a GPS is about right for a certified course. That's about what people usually get on their GPS when they run Boston or NYC or any other strictly measured course. Not sure it's because of the tangents or GPS devices are not quite as accurate.

Congrats...

Thanks man. Most Strava measurements of the local races around (Memphis, Jackson, Nashville) here are 26.2-26.4. This one runs 26.4-26.6. It does have an inordinate number of turns. I can't speak on Boston/NYC, so I'll take your word on it.

Yeah...makes sense. I'll bet it's the turns. If you've ever seen a course certifier work, you'd know why. They are ruthless about cutting the tangents. In a course with a lot of turns there is no way you could run the tangents as measured.

I always thought a race measurer added distance on to any race distance?

Isn't it like 10 metres for every 1km, so over a marathon that's 400 metres making it 42.6k. I seem to remember a few years back a big city marathon added the extras at the end rather than include in each km, so the last distance marker seemed way out

My mistake, it's 1metre for every km, so 42m extra for a marathon

Ok, so I went to Strava and checked the first 40 consecutive people on the "Strava Flyby" for the Rocket City Marathon 2017. They only report 1 decimal place, and the range was 26.2-26.7. The average was 26.39 miles....with significant figures that's 26.4.

Then I went to the Flyby for the 2017 Boston Marathon. A course with notoriously few turns and clockwork race management, certification, and precision. If their course was too long, everyone in the world would know it. I averaged 40 sequential people who ran between 2:57:57 and 2:58:4x. The range was 26.3-26.6. The average was 26.37....with significant figures that's...26.4.

In other words: you ran a standard length marathon and GPS is a garbage way to measure a marathon. No matter how many GPSs you look at.

Frankly, regardless of what the averages show, if I ran a 20 min PR, ran a time that a lot of people doubted I could run, and then tried to claim another minute and a half capability because of GPS data compared to a certified, physically measured course that I chose to run, I would feel like a whiney little wimp. To put it more simply. I would feel shame. But that's just me.

You ran a 2:58:18 marathon. Congratulations, that's an extraordinary accomplishment and you proved many people, including myself, wrong. You have not, and cannot run a sub 2:57 marathon. You cannot say you can until you cross the finish line on a certified course and the clock says a number less than 2:57.

Big congrats to the OP on the sub-3, proved a lot of us wrong here. "Robbed of a sub-2:57" hahahahahaha let it go dude.....

Despite the unlikelihood of getting a point-by-point response, here goes. Your methodology is flawed because the potential amount of difference between the two courses is negated by the fact that Strava does not provide enough significant digits to produce a meaningful result. It's disingenuous to suggest there's a statistically insignificant result when you're not providing necessary input to produce the output. Garbage in, garbage out. I utilized a similarly worthless methodology and arrived at 26.42 for Rocket City and 26.34 for Boston. I then altered the search term and got a result similar to yours (26.41 vs 26.37). I do not make any claims based on this because, as you should know by now, I know how (and more importantly, how not) to interpret data. An investigation of Strava's practice also yields an interesting tidbit of information. They do not round the data when syncing. They simply drop the number in the hundredths position. A 26.23 and a 26.29 both record as 26.2. Garbage in, garbage out. Neither you or I can say anything definitive about the Garmin data, as it pertains to the comparison between the two events, without gathering information on the hundredths position. I have done some preliminary collections (albeit, anecdotal), and they tend to support my claim.

There is also another factor to consider when attempting to compare Boston to another course. Boston is crowded. Very crowded. There are 35 times as many runners on that course as there are in Huntsville. This makes it much, much harder to run (or even see) tangents with so many people in the way. Positioning would be vital but nearly impossible. It was unwise to not consider this. Poor comparison. The fact that, despite this added difficulty, the data still tend to tentatively indicate that Huntsville is slightly longer, only serves to strengthen my claim.

Well, as I have stated before, and I never seem to get a point-by-point response when it's inconvenient, I feel that I can be fairly confident that I could have taken 78 seconds off of my time if that race had been ran on a course that I know to produce GPS times in the 26.30-26.35 range (such as Jackson, TN). Whether fewer tangents or more accurate measurement, the improved results would be the same. When I predicted a best case scenario of 2:57, I did not take this into consideration. That was my fault. If I had known, I would have said 2:58 was a best case scenario. 2:57 would have never come out of my mouth as it pertained to a guess on Rocket City. This is not any different than someone who wished to claim that I could not have run a 3:00 at Boston or NYC. This is no doubt true. Those are more difficult courses. I am merely making a claim in the opposite direction and clearly qualifying it with the label "under optimal conditions." What can hopefully be agreed upon is that I can run Rocket City in 2:58:18. I could have done better on some courses, and I could not have done as good as 2:58:18 on others. Simple claim, and I suspect you know that it's true.

I'm sorry that you would feel that way about yourself. If the roles were reversed and you had done these things, I like to think that I would have taken the high road, refrained from making passive-aggressive personal judgments, objectively considered your claim, evaluated the data, contemplated that your analysis has a history of being spot on, and likely agreed with you. But this reversal of roles would have also entailed me being the one who has failed to consider data within the proper context and neglected to admit the many mistakes I made when they had been pointed out to me (for instance, the one today on the 0.2 vs 0.52 split).

Thanks for that.

Hasty conclusion I'm afraid. No, I have not ran an official sub 2:57 marathon. However, my data indicates that I was in good enough condition yesterday to run a sub 2:57 under ideal conditions on a course with fewer tangential difficulties (man-made or otherwise) . To say that I "cannot run a sub 2:57 marathon" is without merit. I think it was clearly possible (probable?) on a more favorable course, as I elaborated upon earlier.

Definitively, no. However, I can be fairly confident given the information available to me. Would it make any sense to say that I cannot run a 5k in under twenty minutes? After all, I have not crossed the line on a certified course in which the clock read less than 20 minutes. Certainly no one with half a brain would make that claim because they can be reasonably certain given all the information available to them that I am capable of doing so. I have no problem stating that I ran a 2:58:18 and could have likely gone sub 2:57 on an easier course.

HahaRiiiiiiight wrote:

Big congrats to the OP on the sub-3, proved a lot of us wrong here. "Robbed of a sub-2:57" hahahahahaha let it go dude.....

LOL, thanks guy. It's too much fun to let go. Everyone around me was shocked at the GPS data. I'm going to drive the extra two hours to Memphis next year to get my minute back!

OP, I know you think you are hot sh!t but you're not. How about making the trip to club nats next year and see where you finish. You are a miniscule dot of mediocrity in the running world. You can celebrate that if you want but your arrogance shows you for who you are, a pompous tw@ who will never get within a sniff of any success in the running world.