Originally Posted by stapfam
I reckon that a top runner can do a marathon in 2 1/2 hrs. Good club runners in 3+ and good fitness joggers in 4. It is that 4 hour mark you have to aim for as a Fitness or 3+ as a good club runner. Distance for this is the problem but a Flat Metric century- 65 miles on the road should be about right. If much elevation is there though, then 50 miles should suffice.
No, no, no. I don't run any more and I love to cycle, but a century is nowhere near a marathon. Consider, the TdF was 22 stages in 24 days--the vast majority of them were more than 100 miles at very competitive paces. There is no runner in the world who could run a competitive marathon a day for three weeks. The marathon is much more grueling. I don't want to take anything away from doing a century or even a metric (I certainly love to brag whenever I manage those distances), but physically, they are nowhere near the feat that a marathon is. It may well be that the psychic satisfaction and the mental challenge may be similar, but physically, there is little comparison. IMHO.