Forums > Racing > Article On Tailwind's Effect on Mutai's 2:03:02 at Boston
Especially if it is a downhill start.
And for Pete's sake, don't forget to bodyglide your nipples.
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A potential complication here is that most elites generally don't race the course; they race their competitors. If a course is seen as slower, that can be self-fulfilling. I wonder what will happen to Boston pacing after this year?
I wonder how much this would hold up. I understand that it might apply for the first year or two a course is run, however, the Boston course has been run for a long time by a lot of elites. The person that comes in second isn't saying wow I sandbagged the first half I have all this energy left at the end. They are finished toasted and in second. If it really was a course that could be run faster but the elites going out slow because of some perceived difficulty we would see faster splits in the last couple miles because they hadn't run fast enough in the first 20. After a couple years of a pattern of very fast last couple splits I'm pretty sure they would start thinking "hey maybe we should be going out faster"
I was watching CNYRunner's video (in the Master's group) and was struck by how far ahead Kim Smith was (I think that was at the 10 mile mark), too bad about that injury, maybe that could have been just as interesting towards this Best run ever discussion.
No one ever gets away with doing that at Boston. They always crash one way or another. That pack of experienced runners behind her must have been saying to themselves "must be trying to get some TV time."
--Jimmy
1) Tailwinds make runners faster.
2) World records are not normally set in major marathons because of tactics, not because competition gets in the way of running fast times. Those tactics make the first half of the race slower.
3) Renato Canova's analysis is interesting (even if in the end, he is wrong) especially in that he notes that his athletes were ready to run that time precisely because they were running by feel and uninterested in splits. [Aside: If I were a COACH, I would analyze the wind just as Renato did.]
4) Slower runners are less affected by the wind. Duh. A tailwind could even lead to more blow-ups in slower runners because as every runner knows, one effect of running with a following wind is overheating.
The Logic of Long Distance
I think the article makes a very compelling case concerning Mutai's time. And if anyone thinks Mutai doesn't care that about the WR, he has come out and said his time should be recognized as a WR.
Let me say, I didn't notice the tail wind in Boston. The only time I noticed the wind was in a couple places where we got a cross wind. I was surprised by the need to drink more than planned, I expected to hit every other water station, and in the end only skipped 2.I can't imagine that there's anyone here who hasn't had this experience: You are on a run, feeling really good, nailing your splits with less effort than normal, and starting to feel really good about yourself. Then you turn around, and struggle into a nasty headwind, and realize the you had a tailwind that you didn't notice. This seems to happen to me more often that I care to admit.Based on what the elites did, I find it impossible to think that the wind didn't aid all of us Monday as compared to an identical day with the same temp but no wind, even though I never noticed it. And I wish this wasn't the case, since I didn't hit my goal time.
I guess I don't understand the difference. The tactics exist because of the competition, yes?
"When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasn't tired and kept running anyway" -- Ennay's 7-year-old daughter
A Saucy Wench
More on Mutai -
I have become Death, the destroyer of electronic gadgets
"When I got too tired to run anymore I just pretended I wasnt tired and kept running anyway" - dd, age 7
Yeah, I'm not sure who Jeff was responding to, but that was kind of my point. Granted, there is certainly a psychological advantage and performance boost to running a race in the presence of similar others (or others in general, cf. races vs. time trials), but the complaint I've heard about Geb is that these days he seldom puts himself in a position to run a tactical race against viable competitors, potentially weirding up the even splits that break records.
The tactics that lead to slow times are a result of trying not to lead the race because leading is more psychologically demanding--mainly because when you are leading, you have to set the effort, which is mentally very difficult. The fastest racing strategy is to sit behind someone who is just as fast as you and let them do the mental work of managing pace while you keep a mental reserve in order to beat them at the end. That's the purpose of a rabbit.
This is exactly what happened at Boston, by the way. Ryan Hall set a fast pace at the beginning of the race. The two winners settled in behind him, biding their time. Then they blasted the last 10k, racing each other. In this case, competition led to incredibly fast times. That and a good tail wind.
Yeah -- in this case, because Hall went out fast, and the other guys thought it wise not to let him go. But still, the point is the leaders are generally racing each other, and not the clock. If people think the course is faster, you'll see tactics play out more like they did at Boston this year.
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