What indicates better fitness? A 10:10 2-mile split 5:10-5:00 or 5:00-5:10?
What indicates better fitness? A 10:10 2-mile split 5:10-5:00 or 5:00-5:10?
working fella wrote:
What indicates better fitness? A 10:10 2-mile split 5:10-5:00 or 5:00-5:10?
It's not about fitness, it's about strategy, both in race and time trials. And for some distance, one give better results than the other.
It seems that in the marathon negative split is most efficient since Kipchoge and his shoes made the world record. In the 800m, positive split give better times.
I know that the strategy is different for each event. But say I ran 5:00-5:10 and my friend ran 5:10-5:00 in separate time trials. Who is fitter?
You are both in the same shape. In a 3200 we would call that even splits accounting for a fast first 200 or a fast final 200. The only way there would really be an argument to be had about people running the same time but being in different shape is if something like this happened:
-Normie runs a 10:00 3200. His splits were 5:05 and 4:55.
-Doofus runs a 10:00 3200. His splits were 4:25 and 5:35
-Both Gave their all out effort and collapsed at the end of the race
Obviously doofus is in better shape than normie. Doofus could at least run a 9:35 if he paced smarter. Both of you show splits that are even enough that if you took a different approach you’d probably end up with the same time.
A fun game you could play:
You two can do a race where you both decide to go out in 4:45 and then see who wins. That will show you who’s more fit.
working fella wrote:
What indicates better fitness? A 10:10 2-mile split 5:10-5:00 or 5:00-5:10?
If they both went 5:05 even-paced for the first 1600, the first guy would be more likely to negative-split, but the difference is marginal. Also matters whether they are more aerobic or speed-based.
My question to all.. In OP's scenario, which is a better scenario to run a 10:10 If it were to be a PR.. 5:00-5:10 or vice versa?
working fella wrote:
What indicates better fitness? A 10:10 2-mile split 5:10-5:00 or 5:00-5:10?
If they both run to exhaustion, then 5:00/5:10 is harder and therefore implies better fitness, obviously. The positive splitter is in better shape at equal effort for all races above 800 meters.