Wisdom of Crowds: Marathon Edition

Tomorrow is a big day for me — I’m running the Stockholm marathon.

Here’s a simple wisdom of crowds experiment: A free piece of Freakonomics schwag to whoever comes closest to guessing my finishing time. Leave your guesses in the comments anytime before the race begins (2 p.m. Stockholm time = 8 a.m. EST).

And now, the form guide:

The only other marathon I ever ran was the Sydney marathon, over a decade ago, and that took me 4 hours, 35 minutes.

I have been following a fairly good training program, and have been running for about a year. But I should admit that due to paper deadlines, conference travel, and occasional injuries, I’m only about 75 percent compliant.

My only “race” during my preparation was a ten miler, which took me 79 minutes.

But don’t expect me to keep up that pace: My longest training run was 32 km, and that took me 2 hours, 59 minutes. And by the last couple of kilometers, I was really struggling, running close to 6 minutes per kilometer.

I will definitely run the first half no quicker than 5:26 per kilometer. (If I find myself going faster, I’ll definitely slow down.)

The weather forecast: Sun, and a lot of it.

And now, add your guesses in the comments. My research assistant will figure out the mean and median estimates. And I’ll report back (when I’m able) on how the race went.

My prediction: The median estimate will be closer than 85 percent of the individual guesses.

Oh, and if you happen to be in Stockholm and see a rather tired looking Aussie huffing and puffing his way around the course (long hair, blue shorts, white t-shirt, gray cap, bib number 10864), give me a cheer — I’ll need it.