Rule-of-Thumb: 100 Cal/mile

In the last two posts, here and here, we looked at the relationships between grade, power

expenditure, and pace for running.  In those posts, we had to make an assumption about a “base” power use which we defined as the power required to run at a steady pace on flat ground.  Since we were interested mostly in the additional power associated with running up a grade, and since that “base” power is so complicated to estimate for any particular individual, we simply invoked a common rule-of-thumb and used 100 Cal per mile as our base power.  Today, we’ll explore that rule-of-thumb in a little more depth.