Flat Hills Road

Due to my role for this year’s ING NYC Marathon (about which more later) I decided I needed to be able to extract more information from marathon splits as the marathon is actually happening. I remembered that for previous Boston Marathons, David Monti of Race Results Weekly, doing a similar job to what I’m doing, had a fancy-dan Excel spreadsheet to take splits and project times.

While it’s possible that David added some kind of course factor to his spreadsheet, it seems more likely that he did what I did recently: he made projections based on simple math. For example, they’ve reached ten miles in time X, they have sixteen and two-tenths to run. If they run 16.2 at the pace they ran the last mile, they’ll finish in time Y; if they run it at their average pace for the last ten, they’ll finish in time Z.

I did this for mile splits and for 5km splits, which are the numbers I expect to get in New York. I added some conditional formatting to show me if the leaders were speeding up or slowing down, and if they’re ahead or behind course record pace, using colors. (I suppose if I was really a spreadsheet champion I could use varying shades to indicate how far they were from course record pace.) Adding sheets for the wheelchair athletes will also happen before race day.

I had 5km splits for Robert K. Cheruiyot’s Boston Marathon course-record run handy, so I plugged those in and it worked like a champ.

A sheet which would take a finish time and place and calculate prize money with time bonuses would be pretty cool too, I guess, but it’s not quite as algorithmic–it’s more ahead-of-time data entry. New York does have a deep time bonus structure, and the total prize money package will vary widely depending on how fast the pack runs.

If you have any other ideas of useful and/or interesting on-the-fly calculations, take a look at the sheets and let me know what to add. I did the original work in OpenOffice.org Calc, and exported to Excel, so I haven’t tested the Excel version. (Here’s the original .ods version.) You are, of course, welcome to use these yourself during whatever marathon you’re watching; you can see the appropriate cell to change to set the course records.

What we really want to do is tell you how to understand what you’re going to see tomorrow, whether you’re watching it on TV or out on the course. I’ve been tossing around a bunch of ideas over the last day or two; some of them I’ve been talked out of, others I’m hanging on to.

A marathon, for a spectator, is a lot like reading a very long novel. In particular, like reading a very long novel which doesn’t appear to be strong in the plot department. There are hundreds and hundreds of pages of apparently meaningless events and details which don’t seem to be approaching resolution, and then suddenly in fifty intense pages it’s all tied up neat in a bow. You’d think you could just tune in for the last 30 minutes of the race and get everything you need to enjoy it, but the fact is that those first two hours or so, before the fireworks start, are just as important. They’re building up all the characters and ideas and questions that will be resolved later. Just tuning in for the resolution means missing out to some degree.

Knowing the characters never hurts. One plot-line which has been suggested for this year’s men’s race goes like this: Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot is the protagonist. He was selected for the Kenyan Olympic team but withdrew due to injury, since healed. He’s run only one race since last year’s Boston, but the races run by his training partners in recent weeks suggest that he’s in phenomenal condition. He knows this course like nobody else running. He’ll wait for the hills, then try to bash everyone else to pieces on the climbs and cruise in to the city as the victor.

The spoilers in this scenario are a trio. His training partner, Evans Cheruiyot, is every bit as strong and has a faster PR. Evans knows Robert will work harder and run faster if pushed, so he will wait, shadow, and if he’s still in touch after the hills, make his move then.

Deriba Merga, the Ethiopian, is a wild card. He has the restraint of a compulsive gambler and the speed of a thoroughbred. His aggressive tactics have lost him more than one victory in the past (including a medal in Beijing) but his manager promises that he’ll do nothing but wait this year. His manager also admits that Merga is sometimes beyond controlling.

Finally we come to Ryan Hall, the American, the man who would be king. Hall has a mindset which is unfazed by pressure and expectations (he sees them as validations that he’s doing the right thing) and not crushed by them. He can run downhill as well as anybody. Where does he fit in all this? Is he Fifth Business, as he was in his PR run in London? Is he even a character? Does he wait, wait, wait until Kenmore and then try to crush everyone on a wave of crowd support? Or does he get chipped off the pack in the hills and passed by Brian Sell somewhere in Brookline?

There’s been a paradigm shift since Beijing. You can’t be just a strength runner or a speed runner anymore; you have to be able to deploy strength tactics at a speed pace. Sammy Wanjiru has the speed of a Tergat and the strategy of a Tanui. That’s the new standard. What happens when that hits the Boston course, which historically rewards patience and ruins hubris?

My article from yesterday’s press conference is posted as of this morning. I have to say, though, that I was frustrated with the amount of information I was able to gather at the press conference (little) and more than a little confused by the behavior of defending champion Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot.

I don’t want to make excuses for myself here; the situation, as I see it, is that Boston’s press conference setup is uniquely challenging and really requires a solo reporter to be on their “A” game, and I was not.

John Hancock sets up the press conference like an open market. After a welcoming statement from a JH official, the athletes are distributed to a dozen or so tables around the room, two or three runners per table. Reporters then go directly to the athletes they need. The advantage to this is that more athletes are available (twenty or thirty) than would be the case at a New York or Chicago pre-race, which brings in three or four athletes each for three or four press conferences. The disadvantage is that a solo reporter has to circulate around multiple previous champions and interesting contenders, asking the same questions half a dozen other reporters have already asked, in a noisy environment, often with sketchy interpreters.

Big outlets (Runner’s World, major newspapers) take a divide-and-conquer approach to the press conference, bringing four or five reporters and producing multiple stories. The setup works well for them. It worked less well for me, and I’m afraid the story shows it.

The other thing which threw me was four-time champion Robert Kipkoech Cheruiyot. I didn’t know it when I approached him, but “the Mwafrika” is extremely reticent before races. He’s gracious, so he’ll respond politely to every question, but he’s not going to give you what you want. At least, not me. For a moment I wondered if he was actually in touch with reality, but I’m pretty sure he knew exactly what he was doing; I just didn’t have the background to understand what was going on.

I’d really love it if John Hancock moved to a more organized press conference format in the future.

Ryan Hall and Kara Goucher, for the record, were mobbed.