The wives tale would suggest there is a link. My mum had 4 births and they were all very quick 4hrs or less I think. We went to the hospital before things stated to heat up (I was 10 days over so knew it was labour) we got to the hospital and DS was born 2 hours and 40 minutes later.. . We have taken a guess at when the waves (contractions) would have been 5 minutes apart but we estimate that the labour was only about 3 hours and 20 minutes. As for the 'intense' part, that was only about 45mins the midwife told me.