Calculate performance potential over 5 km, 10 km, half marathon and marathon

You want to know what your current best time is over the distances of five kilometers, ten kilometers, half marathon and marathon?

It's easy with our new table. Just take your current best times and search the table for the values that are closest to your respective best times.

Example

Simple example: You have the following best times:

5 km: 22:35 minutes
10 km: 45:40 minutes
Half marathon: 1:40:50 minutes
Marathon: 3:36:40 minutes

Now look in the table, for all four distances, for the value that is closest to your best times:

5 km: Level 59
10 km: Level 62
Half marathon: Level 62
Marathon: Level 59

Result: According to this, you have not yet exhausted your performance level, especially over the five kilometers and the marathon distance.

Over the five kilometers a time of 21:56 minutes would be possible, over the marathon distance 3:29:27 hours.

If you have not yet run a marathon or half marathon, for example, you can also use this table to determine your performance potential over these distances. To do this, take your 5K and 10K best times and find the level and half marathon and marathon times that match them.

Example: You have the following best times:

5 km: 24:30 minutes
10 km: 49:50 minutes

Now look for the corresponding level in the table for the four distances:

5 km: Level 51
10 km: Level 53

That means you take level 53 for your potential for the half marathon and marathon distance. Accordingly, the following times would be realistic for you:

Half marathon: 1:50:33 hours
Marathon: 3:50:10 hours

How the table was developed

The world records up to 2019 for the 5,000 meters, the 10,000 meters, the half marathon distance and the marathon distance were taken. The 10,000-meter race was taken as the basis for the calculation because it includes all facets of running (basic speed, speed endurance, endurance). The times from the 10,000-meter world records were divided by the times from the 5,000 meters, half marathon and marathon. The value obtained is now multiplied by the 10-kilometer time for the 100 different levels.

The table

Note: Level 100 are the men's world records (as of end 2019).

How was the formula calculated?

The basis is the following world records achieved up to and including 2019:

• 5,000 meters: 12:37 minutes and 14:11 minutes, respectively *
• 10,000 meters: 26:17 minutes and 29:17 minutes, respectively *
• Half marathon: 58:01 minutes and 1:04:51 hours, respectively.
• Marathon: 2:01:39 hours resp. 2:14:04 hours

Note (*): We chose track world records over road world records for 5km and 10km. There are several reasons for this: Over the five kilometers, world records on the road are counted only since 2019. This means that the performance potential here is far from being exhausted as it is for the other distance lengths, which would subsequently lead to a slightly distorted result in the calculation. In addition, half marathons and marathons on the road are much more popular than 5 km and 10 km, so it is very likely that over these distances the maximum possible of man has already been exhausted more. Therefore, the record times on the track were taken, which are slightly faster (1 - 2 %) than on the road (example: men's 10,000 meters world record = 26:17 minutes, 10 km world record = 26:44 minutes). In addition, it is easier for amateur runners to reach their potential faster over short distances than over long distances (require more time resources for training, but fewer opportunities to run a best performance, since a marathon requires significantly more recovery than a 10-kilometer run).

How was calculated:

From the two 10,000-meter world records, the proportion of time to the world records of the other distances was now calculated. Example: Extrapolated to the marathon distance, this would be 0.21605699 for the men and 0.21842367 for the women. The average value is taken from these two values, i.e. 0.21724033. This average value is now applied to all 99 levels (level 100 includes all world records). Example: Level 73 has a 10-kilometer time of 40:00 minutes. Multiplying this value by 0.21724033 results in a marathon time of 3:04:08 hours.

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