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This is my personal modification to the FIRST approach of adding a fixed number of seconds per mile to marathon pace. I believe that adding 15 seconds/mile to a 6:00 pace is a much greater difference than adding it to a 10:00 pace. The figures below add a percentage of the MP to the time. The percentage is calculated so that it the average across the main VDOT values (30-85) is the same as the FIRST values. This gives slower runners a larger offset from MP than faster runners.
<include_PHP file="VdotInc_FirstPacesMpPercent"/>
The table below shows the percentage of [[Glycogen]] used on runs of different length and pace. This is one way of evaluating the relative difficulty of different longer runs. The table makes use of a number of assumptions, as listed below, but I believe this is still a useful way of evaluating training runs.
* The calculation assumes that the marathon distance at marathon pace uses are hundred percent of available [[Glycogen]]. However the percentages can also be looked at as a percentage of the difficulty of the marathon race.
* The calculator assumes that the rate of glycogen consumption remains constant for a given pace.
* Remember that [[All models are wrong]].
Many marathon training plans use an absolute offset from marathon pace for their long runs, such as "marathon pace plus 60 seconds/mile". The table below uses this approach, even though it has the flaw that a fixed offset is proportionally larger for faster paces. For instance, 60 seconds per mile is a much greater reduction in pace for someone with a marathon pace of 6:00 min/mile than someone running 10:00 min/mile.
<include_PHP file="VdotInc_LongRunGlycogenAbs"/>
The table below uses a similar approach, but uses a percentage of the target pace rather than an absolute offset.
<include_PHP file="VdotInc_LongRunGlycogen"/>