"There's only one hard and fast rule in running: sometimes you have to run one hard and fast."








Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Yassos Interruptus

I decided to stop whining about not having a clue as to what kind of shape I'm in and do something about it; time to break out the old "Yasso 800s" workout. First, though, I had to find a track - and that took all day. I ended up at the White Bear Lake north campus track, which is crushed brick and was muddy and covered in debris and is old enough to be 880 yards, not 800 meters.

The first 800 was slow, as I didn't do a warm-up - 3:07. Then I managed 3:02, 3:03, 3:04, 3:04, 3:05, 3:06, 3:07, 3:08 and was headed into the last one, when a couple of yahoos decided to race go-carts in the parking lot, filling the air with a blue cloud of exhaust and worrying me that their spinning 360's next to my car was just asking for trouble. So I dropped out of the last one just as one of the carts broke a chain - fortunately causing him to skid uncontrollably in the direction opposite the car.

I'd been feeling down lately, but at least I'm not a guy racing go-carts in a high school parking lot!

The workout suggests I could do a marathon in 3:05 and I think that puts me in 4:55 shape for the Superior 50K, or about 30 seconds per mile slower than Id like - about what I'd been guessing.

[Math alert]
The way I come up with 4:55 is to assume that every 700 feet of climb is like running an additional mile, making the 50K essentially 38.5 miles. Then I plug the numbers into my favorite equation for ultra distances: 1.213xlog(miles)-log (minutes)=constant. Using 26.2 miles and 185 minutes gives the constant, then plugging in 38.5 miles gives 295 minutes, or 4:55.

This would be so much easier if only everyone who ran that 50K would run a road marathon as well, so I could do a direct comparison!

11 comments:

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

I just dropped in to see what condition your condition was in.

Looks like Condition: Groovy no longer obtains.

1.213xlog(miles)-log (minutes)=constant.

Pfftttt! You forgot to correct for wind shear. (That's probably what go-cart guy did, too. NOW look at him.)

Are you still depressed? Cheer up, man! It's almost SPRING!

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

I just made sure to get a bullet point dig in at Nic over at his (former) blog.

Can't believe I failed to 1st time around.

RBR said...

I once saw a guy land a remote controlled, gas powered plane on a service road next to the Baylands trail only to have a truck immediately run it over. Hilarious.

I have run a 50k and a road marathon yet, I am certain my data will not help you :)

I will stop spamming you now. :P

Londell said...

Somewhere in the middle of yassos is ass... Interruptus sounds painful...

Psyche said...

Much, much better to be the guy running Yasso 800's.

I'm glad you're feeling better, but now I'm depressed because you're running Yasso's about 50 seconds faster than me..

joyRuN said...

Yasso 800s and I aren't on speaking terms right now.

Mike W. said...

Ok, having played with your formula, you have my interest, do you have a correction factor for Chippewa or McNaughton? Since the real test of your formula will be for a slower runner like me to verify it or do you know it only works for you faster folks?

Thanks for all of your great posts, they keep me thinking.

SteveQ said...

Mike, I don't think anyone's got a good number for the elevation change of Chippewa and I don't know about McNaughton - you'd have to check around and see if anyone's run those with Garmin Connect. The equation I came up with works for those who are equally adept at all distances (which I most definitely am not).

Glaven Q. Heisenberg said...

Re: Chilton -

No, I hadn't heard!

They're dropping like flies.

Man, what form of punishment do I deserve that when I see the song title "The Letter" the first thing that pops into my head is that "Take a letter, Maria, address it to my wife" song?

Blasphemy, I know. But there's a lot of musical crap rolling around up here in my cranium, as well as the good stuff.

Man, Chilton wasn't even 60!

I don't even have a digital copy of "The Letter" - I'll have to remedy that soon as I get home.

Way to depress me first thing in the morning, Steve.

You know, I first learned of Sky Saxon's death here at your blog, too. What? Are you on some kind of Rock n Roll Death E-mail Early Alert List?

SteveQ said...

First I picks my dead pool, then I packs my gun, pardner.

SteveQ said...

I found marathon times for a dozen of last year's Superior 50K and they suggest I could run 4:50-5:00, so I guess I'm close with my prediction.