How Fast Will Goucher & Smith Run in NYC?

We walk you through the statistical guesswork

Predicting how someone will debut in the marathon is never an easy task. In fact, it can make stock market prediction look a lot more attractive at times. So many factors combine to make the marathon a truly mercurial event, even for a seasoned veteran, so the range of performances one could expect from a marathon debutante can vary wildly. For instance, former 10000m world record holder Haile Gebrselassie, made his marathon debut in London in 2002 finishing third in one of the ten fastest times at that point (2:06:35). On the other hand, Moroccan Salah Hissou, also a former 10000m world record holder, debuted at 2:12:45 at the 2004 Rotterdam Marathon finishing a distant 11th.

This year's New York City Marathon has Kara Goucher (USA) and Kim Smith (NZL), two excellent 5000m/10000m specialists, making their marathon debuts on Sunday, November 2. Both were former NCAA champions in cross country and have made an impression on the world stage the last few years. Last year, Goucher finished third in the World Champs 10000m and made the Olympic team this year in both the 10000m and 5000m, setting a PR in the 10000m final with 30:55.16). Kim Smith ran a national record of 30:35.54 for 10000m this year and placed 9th in the Olympics for that event. Their 10000m times make them some of the fastest women to debut over the marathon. Not only will they be racing against each other, but they will be facing one of the toughest marathon fields this year: Paula Radcliffe, Catherine Ndereba, Gete Wami and Joyce Chepchumba to name a few.

So what can one expect Goucher and Smith to run in NYC? In this article we make some educated guesses by looking first at what other women with similar 10000m times have debuted in, and also what are trends in debut times for NYC.

Translating high-performance 10000m times to the Marathon

As noted earlier, both Goucher and Smith boast sub-31:00 10000m times on their resume. In this section we investigate how other runners with similar marks have fared when they moved up to the marathon. Using the alltime-athletics.com website, there are 50 women who have broken 31:00 on the track. Of those 50, just 28 of those have run at least one marathon in their career. And out of those 28, 11 of them didn't make their marathon debut until the same year as their 10000m PR, or later. These 11 are the most relevant because their marathon debuts came after their 10000m PR, a similar situation that of Goucher and Smith (which is not to say that Goucher and Smith can't improve their 10000m bests in the future). The table below lists the 11 women and their respective 10000m PRs, marathon debut times, and also their marathon PRs.

Name	10000m	Marathon Debut	Marathon PR
Paula Radcliffe	30:01.09 ('02)	2:17:18 ('02)	2:15:25 ('03)
Getenesh Wami	30:17.49 ('00)	2:22:19 ('02)	2:21.34 ('06)
Fernanda Ribeiro	30:22.88 ('00)	2:37.04 ('02)	2:29:48 ('06)
Galina Bogomalova	30:26.20 ('03)	2:31.54 ('03)	2:20.47 ('06)
Edith Masai	30:30.26 ('05)	2:27.06 ('05)	2:27.06 ('05)
Benita Johnson	30:37.68 ('03)	2:38.03 ('04)	2:22.36 ('06)
Kayoko Fukushi	30:51.81 ('02)	2:40.54 ('08)	2:40.54 ('08)
Elana Meyer	30:52.51 ('94)	2:25.15 ('94)	2:25.15 ('94)
Elizabeth McColgan	30:57.07 ('91)	2:27.32 ('91)	2:26.52 ('97)
Leah Malot	30:57.70 ('00)	2:55.52 ('08)	2:55.52 ('08)
Merima Hashim	30:59.82 ('00)	2:33.52 ('05)	2:33.52 ('05)

As one would expect given the random nature of the marathon, the debut times range widely from Radcliffe's 2:17:18 to Malot's 2:55.52. Further refining the analysis to make it more comparable to Goucher and Smith's situation, one can look at the 8 women who ran their debut within two years of their 10000m debut (all those in BOLD). Out of these 8, the average debut time was 2:28:50.