A.M. 10.1 with Jeff and Mary Ann in 1:17:05. Daniel ran the first 3 with us, then turned around. Did explosive sprints, felt smooth. P.M. 1 with Julia in 9:23, 2 with Benjamin in 16:42, Jenny ran 1.5 with us in 13:03. Standing broad jump - 83 inches. Improvement from Monday. I have a "crazy" idea. I love shocking ideas that challenge stereotypes, and make the crowd want to mock them. The reason I do is often when the crowds gets too worked up in the mockery they are proved wrong and you experience the exhilaration of a bull fighter that just stepped out of the way of a speeding bull to see the irate beast slam into a fence with full force.
So here is the "crazy" idea. If you run 90 miles a week, and marathon is your best distance, standing broad jump can very accurately predict your performance on every distance up to half-marathon, and barring fuel disasters can predict your marathon as well. In case of a fuel disaster add 10 minutes to the marathon time. But up to the half I expect the margin of error to be no more than 3%. Again, in case somebody missed it - this applies to athletes whose best event is the marathon and who run 90 miles a week or more. We are not predicting a 1:55 marathon for a thrower or power-lifter that jumps 10 feet, nor are we predicting a 2:05 marathon for a 20 miles a week high school runner that jumps 9 feet. But we might predict a sub-4:00 mile for the high schooler, though.
If the above is true, there are some interesting implications. Once you get to 90 miles a week, you should continue to run the miles, but otherwise focus on whatever it takes to improve your jump. You might have to do weights, hill sprints, intervals, or just get whipped with a twig, but the way to tell if it is effective is if it improves your jump under those conditions.
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