Runners will know, if they want to predict what time they should be aiming for in, say, a 10km race, based on what they can do at 5km, you should do more than merely doubling the time: the longer a race, generally the slower you need to go. One useful rule is known as the 6% rule. It isn’t unfortunately as simple as merely doubling the 5km time and adding 6% - instead it is raising the ratio of distances to a power of 1.06.

So (10/5)^1.06, would give you a factor of around 2.085. Multiply this by your typical 5km time and you should be looking at that for your 10km time.

Of course, this is only a rule of thumb, so will be more true for some people than for others. For one athlete, let’s call him Norm, he finds that his personal best times, at a variety of distances, precisely follow the rule (to the nearest second). His half-marathon best time is exactly 1 hour more than his 10km best time. (A half-marathon in metres is 21097.5).

What are his 10km and half-marathon personal bests?