Because of the special difficulty of the historic Athens Marathon course, any performance prediction based on previous research data is problematic. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationships between selected physiological variables and final time in this particular race. Twenty-eight male volunteers were divided into two groups: elite and good runners (marathon times between 2:20:35 and 3:01:04) and slower runners (3:10:29 to 4:16:51). All subjects performed a standard laboratory treadmill test prior to participating in the race. The resulting data and the race times were analysed statistically. Ventilatory threshold (VT) and velocity at VO2max (vVO2max) correlated highly with performance. The authors conclude that knowledge of one's VT and vVO2max are particularly meaningful for predicting optimal marathon pace. Using VO2max, VT and %VO2max@VT, final marathon time can be predicted with fair accuracy (±5.4 min) and thus an optimal pace for runners with performance times <3:00:00 on this route can be prescribed.
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