We flipped on the TV about 5 minutes before the first women runners crossed the finish line in the Boston Marathon. What did the children with us learn from watching 15 minutes of coverage (enough to see both the leading men and women finish)?
- it is more important to hear from the 4th place finisher if she is American than from the 1st place winner if she is not American
- Dunkin’ Donuts is the American brand most associated with top athletic performance (logo continuously displayed on screen)
- the best way to run 26 miles is with a gasoline-powered motorcycle throbbing away next to your right ear (could they not use an electric motorcycle?)
Separate question for running experts: Why was this year’s race slower than in some previous years? Headwinds? Weather actually colder than optimum?
I actually think the times are pretty consistent. But yes, weather can play a big part. For instance, in 2011, there was a large tail wind, resulting in record times. High temperatures can have the opposite effect. Higher temperatures can easily add several minutes to your time. The optimum temperature is probably about 50. Colder weather usually isn’t a problem (unless you’re talking REALLY cold. Even then, people usually don’t think it’s too much of a problem.)
Plus there’s individual variability. Meb won last year, but came in 8th this year after vomiting 5 times on the course.
And don’t forget that you don’t run a race like this by just running your fastest, there’s a lot of strategy. You don’t want to run faster than you have to and burn up all your energy, so you look around at how fast others seem to be running, and try to stick at that pace, testing the others to see how they react, until the last 10 miles or so. Supposedly, last year everyone thought Ryan Hall was the American to watch, so they set their pace by him, but he wasn’t doing too well, and Meb surprised everyone by breaking out and winning (he was 38 years old, so no one expected him to be the front runner).
I’m not interested in the 1st place finisher, nor the 4th place… I’m interested in the 4,841th-place finisher. Why? He’s a family member.
For exactly the same reason, if I were a US TV network with a US audience, I would have particular interest in the first American finisher.
Why was this year’s race slower than in some previous years? Top runners don’t race for time: they race to win.
This reminds me of a conversation with my father about the 2000 election:
Dad: “If presidential elections were majority vote (rather than imposing an Electoral College), Gore would have beaten Bush.”
Me: “You don’t know that.”