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Runner’s World May 2004
By Jeff Galloway

Q & A

Q. How do I figure out what pace I can run for any given race distance?
A. You can estimate an appropriate race pace by taking your times from previous hard efforts and looking them up on pace-predictor tables, like the one below. For instance, a previous mile time can be used to predict a future 5-K race pace. (If you haven’t raced lately, time yourself running a mile on a local track.) While you can make race-pace predictions for longer races than the 5-K based on your mile time, the farther away you get from the distance you’ve actually run, the less accurate your prediction is likely to be. So a better predictor or your 10-K race pace is a previous 5-K race pace. And to predict your race pace for a marathon, a half-marathon time will be more accurate. The following table is based on the race times of thousands of average runners I’ve worked with.

5-K 10-K Half- Marathon
race race marathon race
Mile pace pace race pace pace
5:55 6:30 7:00 7:15 7:55
6:20 7:00 7:35 8:00 8:45
7:15 8:00 8:40 9:15 10:05
8:10 9:00 9:55 10:45 11:40
9:05 10:00 11:00 11:55 12:55
10:00 11:00 12:05 13:05 14:15

THE EXCUSE (AND HOW TO BEAT IT)
The only time I have to run is early in the morning...but I’m not a morning person.
The most successful morning runners get out of bed and out the door with as little though (“why bother?”) or hassle (“where are my socks?”) as possible. It’s all about making it second nature. Some meet a running pal, others take the dog outside. Here’s a cup-of-joe routine that works for me.
01. Before you go to bed, lay out your running clothes near the coffee pot.
02. As you go to sleep, repeat to yourself, “feet hit the floor - on to the coffee pot.”
03. When the alarm screams, automatically put your feet on the floor and head to the coffee pot/changing area.
04. As you prepare and drink your hot beverage (and maybe eat half an energy bar or bagel), put on your clothes
05. With your cup in hand, walk outside to check the weather.
06. Walk to the edge of your property, put down your cup, cross the street, and you’re on your way. Once your body gets moving, it wants to keep moving.

30-minute workout NO TIME? NO WORRIES!
Thanks to an extra-long staff meeting, your lunch-hour run has been sliced in half. No problem. Try this run on any out-and-back route. Begin with a one-minute walk, a one-minute jog, and another one-minute walk. Then ease into the pace of the day. When you hit 15 minutes, take a 30- to 60-second walk break, then turn around. Now your mission is to run back faster than you ran out.

(SAY WHAT?) RUNNING JARGON, TRANSLATED
anaerobic (an-air-ROW-bik) High-intensity exercise (think sprinting) where the respiratory and cardiovascular systems can’t deliver all the oxygen required by the muscles. Runners can’t sustain an anaerobic pace for long.