VDOT Race Equivalence

Are you familiar with VDOT?  Maybe you should be.   The concept was developed by Jack Daniels and popularized through his book, Daniels’ Running Formula.  I will not go into the details here, but just say that these tables were developed over years looking at the performances of hundreds of athletes.  For our purposes, you can use your VDOT score to do 3 important things: (1) Assess your level of fitness and performance, (2) Gauge equivalent performances and predict performance in various races, and (3) Determine proper training intensities.

Here we go.  Here’s what you do:

1)       Look at your last race performances under normal conditions (i.e., normal weather and terrain).

2)       The best VDOT, is the one to look at.  From this you can guess your likely performance in the other races.

So, for example, if your recent PR for the 5K was 21:50, your VDOT would be 45.  Looking at the table, you can see your expected equivalent performance for other common race lengths.

VDOT	5K	10K	15K	Half	Marathon
40	24:08	50:03	77:06	1:50:59	3:49:59
41	23:38	49:01	75:29	1:48:40	3:45:40
42	23:09	48:01	73:56	1:46:27	3:40:27
43	22:41	47:04	72:27	1:44:20	3:36:20
44	22:15	46:09	71:02	1:42:17	3:32:17
45	21:50	45:16	69:40	1:40:20	3:29:20
46	21:25	44:25	68:22	1:38:27	3:24:27
47	21:02	43:36	67:06	1:36:38	3:21:38
48	20:39	42:50	65:53	1:34:53	3:17:53
49	20:18	42:04	64:44	1:33:12	3:14:12
50	19:57	41:21	63:36	1:31:35	3:10:35
51	19:36	40:39	62:31	1:30:02	3:07:02
52	19:17	39:59	61:29	1:28:31	3:04:31
53	18:58	39:20	60:28	1:27:04	3:01:04
54	18:40	38:42	59:30	1:25:40	2:58:40
55	18:22	38:06	58:33	1:24:18	2:56:18
56	18:05	37:31	57:39	1:23:00	2:53:00
57	17:49	36:57	56:46	1:21:43	2:50:43

Now that you know you VDOT, there is an even more important use for it than guessing what your next 15K might be.  With it you can set training intensities for Economy Pace runs, Marathon Pace runs, Threshold Pace runs, and Intervals.  More on that in my next post.