Mt. Washington prelude

Mt. Washington road race is Saturday. Weather looks to be decent for running (50s, showers) but not watching (Sorry, Cacky, Danielle, and Pete). Having never run a hill climb, I think any race prediction will be sketchy, at best. But here goes...

The quickest and best predictor is your previous Mt. Washington time. I don't have one. The next quickest is 1/2 marathon time. I haven't run a 1/2 marathon since Fall 05, when I first started running seriously, so I don't think that would be a useful predictor. But I can use a 10K race to predict my 1/2 marathon time. The McMillan predictor predicted my Fall 08 5K and 10K races perfectly (although, I was pacing myself based on the prediction so there is some circularity there!). Were I in fall '08 race shape (39:03 10K), my predicted 1/2 marathon time would be 1:26:54. The official Mt. Washington race predictor using my fall '08 10K gives me a low-high range: 1:21:25 - 1:26:18. The Mt. Washington predictor is a little optimistic based on the better runners who typically beat their 1/2 marathon times by a few minutes.

Of course I'm not well trained for the 1/2 marathon distance, and it's spring and not fall, and I've got my piriformis injury and my training has been extremely depressing for the last month. So I think a more realistic, optimistic 10K time might be 40 minutes which would give me a prediction of 1:29 (McMillan) or 1:23:24 - 1:28;24 (Mt. Washington predictor) and a more realistic, pessimistic 10K time (given the sore arse & sub-sub-sub optimal training) of 41:30 10K would give me a prediction of 1:32:21 (McMillan) or 1:26:31 - 1:31:43. This of course assumes that I don't bonk or have a sidestitch.