I was looking through some of my old folders about running. They were mostly about running a marathon and the times and pace to run a set time. One page was a summary of an article in Runner Magazine from December 1979. The article, by George Myer, was about a theory of how to run a desired time in a marathon. He had divided the marathon distance of 26.2 miles into five five-mile segments. He had a percentage of the total time in each of the segments. He had mile 0 – 5 at 18.75% of your total time; miles 5 – 10 at 18.15% of your total time; miles 10 – 15 at 18.55% of your total time; miles 15 – 20 at 19.25% of your total time; miles 20 – 25 at 20.35% of your total time, and from mile 25 to 26.2 hold your pace and if you feel good go for it. I tried his theory several times and usually came within three or four minutes of my desired time. I have used it for a friend who wanted to walk a seven-hour marathon and it worked.
Here’s a sample of the pace for each five-mile segment if a runner wanted to run a 4-hour marathon. Mile 0 – 5 is 9:00 minute pace; mile 5 – 10 is 8:43 pace; mile 10 -15 is 8:54 pace; mile 1520 is 9:15 pace; and miles 20 – 25 is 9:46 pace. The key to making this theory work is you have to be able to know your pace. If you want that four-hour time in the marathon you have to average a 9:10 per minute pace. With George Myer’s theory you will run different times each five-mile segment. To learn pace, it almost requires some work on a 400-meter (440 yards) track. That 4-hour marathon needs the runner to run around the track in 2:18 minutes.
I tell runners working on pace work to divide the track into four segments. Start at the 50yard line of a football field (almost all tracks run around a football field). The first segment is between the goal posts at the end of the field; the second segment is the 50yard line on the opposite side of the field; and the third segment is the goal posts at the other end of the field; and the 50-yard line start is the fourth segment. Each segment is approximately 110 yards. The time at the first goal post should be :34 seconds; the 50-yard line on the opposite side of the field should be 1:08 minutes; the goal posts at the far end of the field should be 1:41 minutes; and reaching the starting point should be 2:16 minutes.
It is much easier to adjust your pace if the distance is broken into smaller segments, and then adjust if you are going too fast or slow at each landmark. It will take a few laps around the track before you “feel” what that pace is like. After a few laps you will find that you are hitting each segment at the designated time. On the sheet I have for a handout I have the times for the lap around the track for marathon times from three hours (7:00 min. average pace) to 6:20hours (14:30 min. average pace) to learn certain paces. With Myer’s theory with several different times for the five segments you will need to know your pace at each segment. It does take some time to learn the pace you are running when you enter a 10K race and there are no quarter mile landmarks – only mile markers.
I tried to apply Myer’s theory to running a 10K race and instead of fivemile segments use onemile segments with each of the percentages for each segment. It comes close but breaking the segments into one-mile segments versus five-mile segments doesn’t quite work out as well. The difference is the last mile of a 10K race. The theory works for the first five miles in a 10K but even though both the marathon and a 10K race have the same 1.2-mile finish it takes a little more calculation to determine that last segment of a 10K. After five-miles use Myer’s recommendation for the last mile that states, “Try to hold your pace or how you feel if you want to slow down or speed up for the last mile and a quarter.” Go learn at your own pace.
