I’m excited to share my latest web app: a calculator for threshold pace, CV pace, and VO2max pace!
📱 Check out my new threshold, CV, and VO2max calculator here! 📱
This calculator allows you to predict physiological training paces from any race distance from 800m to 10 km.
This app was developed by analyzing over 10,000 race performances using the critical speed model, the gold standard in physiology for determining metabolically stable and metabolically unstable paces.
The app also includes uncertainty ranges so you can get an idea of the range of different physiological profiles that you might find among runners at the same level of performance.
Below the app, you’ll find a detailed write-up of how it works and what differences you’ll notice between this app and other CV pace, threshold pace, and VO2max pace calculators and tables that you might’ve used in the past.
As with all of my apps, it is 100% free and open-source. If you find any bugs, have any suggestions for improvements, or spot something that doesn’t look right, drop me an email.
Model performance in-depth
For completeness, here's one of the main diagnostic plots I used to analyze whether the calculator was performing as expected.
By plotting predicted threshold pace (CS- as predicted from one race performance) against actual threshold pace (CS- from the critical speed model, fit to three or more performances from the same athlete during the same season), I was able to get an idea of how reliable the calculator is across different events, both for male and female athletes.
Overall I'm quite happy with the results. The model underperforms a bit for a small number of extremely fast collegiate men in the indoor mile, though interestingly not for collegiate men in the outdoor 1500m.
It's also clear that, as you'd expect, there is much more variability in aerobic capabilities among 800m runners of a particular level vs. longer events.
The "blobby" behavior in the 1600m (but not the mile) is a consequence of selection effects: the high school dataset I used had an "honor roll cutoff" time, so the 1600m times abruptly end just before this time standard.
This plot also confirms my suspicion that 5k performance is the best all-around measure for estimating physiological parameters like threshold pace, CV / critical speed, and VO2max pace.
(The reason there are so few 10k performances, by the way, is that to make it into the dataset, a runner had to race the 10k and three other events from 800-5k during the same season: in some cases this was 1500/3000/5000, and in others it was 800/1500/5000. Even with a very small number of datapoints, though, the model performs remarkably well given a 10k time).
Get updates
If you haven’t already, sign up below for my email list! It’s the best way to find out when I have new projects like this. I’ve already got a few more ideas in the works, so sign up if you want to be the first to find out.
You should also check out my book, Modern Training and Physiology for Middle and Long-Distance Runners. It focuses on the science of performance and training for events from 800m to the 10k. Check it out!
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