What's your Paula Distance?

A couple of years ago someone asked me: "If you were running alongside Paula Radcliffe, how long could you keep up with her?"
I replied that I didn't think I could run that fast at all, even when sprinting! This probably wasn't far from the truth.

A year later I watched the winner of the Billy 5 race come in in a time of 25:50. This is exactly Paula's world record pace of 5:10/mile. That guy, the fastest athlete in our area, could keep up with Paula for 5 miles.

This got me thinking.

The shorter the distance, the faster we can run it flat out. At what distance does one's race pace equal 5:10/mile? There are pace calculators to work out paces, so one should be able to start with a pace and work out a distance. It all comes down to mathematics.

So imagine the scene: you're on the start line of a major marathon, crowds cheering you on. You stand shoulder to shoulder with Paula Radcliffe (boys can imagine this too!). The gun goes and you're off. Paula adopts a strong pace of 5:10/mile aiming for her world record. You, on the other hand, want your 15 minutes of fame. You hurl yourself down the starting straight for all you're worth. Soon your moment of glory is over and you collapse exhausted in the gutter.

Did I say 15 minutes of fame? I think you might be disappointed!

Enter a race time and distance into the calculator below and you will find out just how far you could get: your Paula Distance or PD.



Remember this is just for fun. The more your race distance differs from your PD, the more inaccurate the results are likely to be, in the same way that trying to predict a marathon time from a 5k result is likely to be wrong.

Have fun!