Feeling better, but still not 100%. Ran easy with Ted, 8.6 miles. Pretty much the entire run we debated the issue of the correlation between 100 meter sprint and marathon potential in the same runner. His point of view - there are way too many factors that could either make a good marathoner sprint slow, or a fast sprinter run a poor marathon for the correlation to exist. My point of view - while a fast sprint does not guarantee a fast marathon, and a slow sprinter has some hope in the marathon, a slow sprint puts a cap on your marathon performance. Being able to sprint not too terribly slow is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a good marathon performance. We agree with each other to a point, the disagreement is in the numbers. My contention that Ted disagrees with - unless you have an extreme proportion of slow-twitch fibers ( Alberto Salazar style) which is found probably in no more than 3% of all distance runners, 100 meter time of 15.0 means you will not run much faster than 2:30 in the marathon. This actually makes a nice rule - take your 100 meter time in seconds, do it times ten. That is your limit in the marathon in minutes. We also had a disagreement on how fast a slower runner (that runs a marathon in over 3:00 even with some decent training) could run 100 meters. So I thought it would be helpful to gather some data for our future discussions, and perhaps also for inspiring some more serious exercise physiology research. If you would like to contribute, please submit the following data in the comments - does not have to be current, but needs to come from the same time period: your marathon performance, the training you did to achieve it, your 100 meter performance from the same time period, and the specific 100 meter training you did to achieve it (for most of us it will be nothing more than some strides and short speed work intervals at best). Ran with the kids in the afternoon. Feeling a bit better towards the evening, good sign, sinus infection pain is going away.
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