2011:
Overall place: 8723 out of 23,913 finishers
Gender place: 1834 out of 10,074 finishers
Age group place (18-34): 1369 out of 5200 finishers
2012:
Overall place: 6503 out of 21,554 finishers
Gender place: 1543 out of 8966 finishers
AG place: 1152 our of 4580 finishers
At first I was excited to see I moved up in place in each category, because I am not great at math and didn't realize I wasn't comparing apples to apples given the disparate field sizes. But some quick Googling to figure out how to do that revealed the following:
- In 2011, I was in the top 36.5% of all finishers. In 2012, I was in the top 30%.
- In 2011, I was among the top 18% of women. In 2012, top 17%.
- In 2011, I was in the top 26% of my AG. In 2012, top 25%.
A couple things worth noting, in part because I think they are interesting and in part because they make me feel better about the shit show in which I participated on Monday. First, let me reiterate that I ran 17 minutes slower this year than last year. That's a lot of minutes, even in a marathon. That my gender and AG performances over the two years were comparable shows that all the other ladies, 18-34 and otherwise, suffered proportionally (at least I think that's what it shows. Again, math isn't my my forte). Not that I'm happy that people uniformly had slow races, but I do take some comfort in knowing that, generally speaking, I blew up to the same degree other people blew up, or that others consistently ran dramatically slower than usual to avoid that blow up.
I also think it's interesting to see that compared to the whole of the field, my performance in 2012 was better. Ipso facto, heat impacts dudes worse than ladies, because you're all wimps. You can't question math!
There also should be a mathematical adjustment factor for the people that completely quit or that never started in the first place who would have been sitting at the bottom.
ReplyDeletePretty likely those extra 2000 finishers from 2011 are people who failed to start/finish (I now notice this is what Vaudiophile says above, bummer- but it's worth emphasizing :) ) Think you improved loads.
ReplyDeleteGeek alert, but remember elites added 10mins (around 8%) approx 18mins scaled linearly, not including the increased impact of all the bad things over a longer time period and them being used to the heat...
You used ipso facto in a running post! HA
ReplyDeleteI think you still did a good job considering the circumstances. I know a few people who still ran decent races, decent meaning 10-20 minutes slower. I know quite a lot of people who totally blew up. Only 13.1% (source:marathonguide.com) of people requalified compared to the usual almost 50%!
ReplyDeleteYou've touched on something really important -- for the elites, when the conditions suck no one cares about time, just their finishing place. They are running to outrun everyone else under the same conditions. As mere mortal runners, we are obsessed with time because that's primary way we measure our progress and "how well" we ran. But there's really no such thing as an apples-to-apples comparison between races, except maybe on the indoor track... and even then, there are still some variables beyond the runner's control that affect performance. It's just such a crapshoot to have all the conditions come together for a great race. To have a great race in the marathon, in a place with such notoriously unpredictable (or such notoriously, predictably crappy!) weather as Boston, after training through the winter... it's asking for a lot of stars to line up. You have to be really happy with how you handled the epic flaming turdbomb that was dealt to you. I'm proud of you anyway.
ReplyDeleteI get that you are dissatisfied with your time on Monday, but shouldn't you be looking at the fact that you proved to yourself that you REALLY ARE an athlete? Athletes train hard and make sacrifices. They also continue to perform no matter what the conditions are, and you did all of that. Relatively speaking, you did better this year than last, and I'm not looking at the math. The ultimate failure would have been to GIVE UP, but you told yourself that it wasn't an option. Your PR should be of no consideration this time. You stuck it out, so you should be proud of yourself. I'm waiting for the self-deprecating to end.
ReplyDelete