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Effect of weight loss on times
Pie Runner
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I've been running for a few years with a marathon pb of 4.50, HM 2.02, 10k 54:00 and 5k 25.30. I'm pretty steady at 25 ish miles a week unless in marathon training. I am however very overweight and these times have been run at about 18 stone. I am currently 17 st 6 lb (hopefully on a long road to a more sensible weight) and to be honest already feel a bit swifter in training runs. I just wondered if anyone had experience of losing excess weight and what happened to their times? I don't plan to change much in training, other than being consistent. Any help would be much appreciated
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Assuming you are average build and height you could make massive improvements.
There are statistics on how much a stone of weight saves you in a marathon, I can't remember the article but it was significant. That was just the carrying of the weight. Assuming you lost a lot of the weight from training, you also have the aerobic endurance improvements on top.
That marathon time also looks slow compared to the shorter distances as well.
http://www.runningforfitness.org/calc/diet/weighteffect
Sounds plausible.
Your mara time is way wonky compared to your half - I'm guessing your training wasnt as thorough as it was for the half ?
I once worked it out for me that when I lost a fair bit of weight, my improvement in times could all have been attributed to the weight loss! That was a slight kick in the teeth, but then I was able to improve my times some more whilst maintaining that weight.
Surely the usual drop off from HM to marathon time is only accentuated with excess weight? You're using a huge amount of energy to travel 26.2 miles. I'm sure one of the advantages of losing weight would be to reduce this drop off in pace.
It's very difficult to quantify the effect of weight loss on performance IMO, since it's rare that other variables remain unchanged. My race times have improved dramatically with weight loss but I've got there through a steady increase in training volume, as well as healthier eating, which has obviously got me fitter. The less excess weight you're carrying, the more training you can do without increasing chance of injury. Double bonus.
Good luck with the weight loss. I didn't start running until after I lost the majority of what was needed, but I've since found that having something other than weight loss to focus on as a target, i.e. race performance, has itself made weight management something that takes care of itself.
I'm only looking for 31 seconds off my PB for VMLM 2017. Just need to go a little easier on the peanut butter and jam sarnies.
It really depends on the weight lost in the form of fat.
For me it was a simple %.
If I dropped 2% due to fat loss, I had the potential to go 2% faster.
I say potential since it also required some adjustments to running style/ co-ordination to get there.
🙂
Lots of good comments so far... but just to add my two penn'orth...
I lost about 30% of my original weight and knocked an hour (pretty much exactly) off my HM time and just under half an hour off my 10K time. I did do training, albeit rather erratic, when I was very heavy - but the weight loss made training easier and therefore more enjoyable and it became self perpetuating to do more and more training.
This was mainly achieved by religiously monitoring my calories in vs calories out (myfitnesspal) and more consistent running (supported by Pilates and strength training).
Good luck with losing a bit of heft - I highly recommend it!!!
Colin, were you not taught at school to read the question properly?
The key issue is the difficulty in disagregating (1) the benefit of being lighter from (2) the increase in training that helped cause the weight loss in the first place.
The solution would be for someone to don a weighted jacket for their weekly ParkRun, and measure the difference in time. I can't imagine it'd be a pleasant run tho
P.s. Colin - not sure your comments were either polite or insightful.
You are just repeating back to me what I have pointed out to you. Why would you make remarks that don't address the OP's question?
Surely you could just set up your own nutritional information thread offering your expertise, that way people you choose to listen to your insight.
I find it makes a bigger difference over the marathon than the shorter distances....like Phil Pub suggested above
when i lost weight it was the only time that my marathon time matched more with the shorter distances......
and it wasnt really much to do with training as I always put the miles in....
I wasnt as heavy as the OP..but my weight does fluctuate over about 20lb
As a bit of a laugh, my club did a 1-mile time trial recently, where everyone who ran weighed the same so the lighter people were made heavier with weights, up to the weight of the heaviest person who was running. It was just a bit of fun, but the results were quite amusing and some of the lighter runners (who were made heavier) were half dead at the finish.
I know that was a laugh but to be realistic I reckon the weight would have to be evenly distributed around the body. Or more accurately proportionately distributed.
You would need some kind of weighted fat suit rather than carrying some stuff in a backpack or whatever. I am curious as to how you carried the weight?
I reckon a 10 stone person carrying 3 stone of weights is gonna have a much harder time than a 13 stone person without. Besides the body composition differences, you're never going to be able to distribute the weight as efficiently as excess weight distributed evenly (sort of) around the body.
I did consider - for about half a second - entering the international wife carrying contest, but my gf is too light so they'd have to handicap her with tins of beans or something.
Wouldn't you also need to marry her?
Oof! Can of worms!
...Bugger, just looked up the rules:
So it needs to be someone's wife. I think I'd feel uncomfortable carrying someone else's wife.
So, yeah, it wasn't scientific in any way but just a bit of a laugh. It didn't account for height, weight distribution or anything but the village pub did a roaring trade that afternoon!!
Phil... she must be tiny if she is too light.....its very low I seem to recall..........about the weight of my left leg
7st something........
Yeah, 49kg minimum and she's about 46. Six tins of beans please!
The lightest person came last, by quite a distance.
Not sure if it proved anything, but it was a good afternoon