I was with a group running 5:58 to 6:02. Mile 16, against a 10 mph SE headwind, was 5:45. I did not feel like we sped up. A 5:45 is my half marathon pace and would have "killed me". Someone else in the group suggested the marker must be off. Seems odd in such a major marathon for a mile marker to be off.
Just curious if anyone else felt the same.
Hmm. Here's my GPS mile splits (much slower than yours, lol):
6 7:16
7 7:20
8 7:17
9 7:25
10 7:15
11 7:17
12 7:14
13 6:57
14 7:17
15 7:18
16 7:22
17 7:23
18 7:21
19 7:17
20 7:25
Mile 13 clearly the outlier, and that ran mostly southward back into the loop. How did your mile 20 time look? That was another long straightaway facing that SE headwind.
if you go on Strava, you could see other people's splits. i did not notice anything that jumps out at mile 16, but my review was cursory to the extreme. See for yourself: http://www.strava.com/running-races/2014-chicago-marathon
Midpack, are you aware that if the mile 16 marker was placed incorrectly, it would not affect your GPS data?
OP: did you get a slower split for either mile 15 or 17? It's not uncommon for a mile marker to be a little off so that one mile seems a little long and an adjacent one a little short.
It's much less likely that mile 16 was just too short by itself.
If anything, sometimes on longer runs if I have to deal with wind or hills, I will hyperfocus and worry so much about losing pace that I will actually speed up for the mile in question. If you were running in a group especially, you could probably have gotten caught up in a slight increase without realizing it.
good point. if the laps were auto, rather than manual - and there is no way to tell from participant to participant - then my Strava idea is dumb.
alfred duey wrote:
Midpack, are you aware that if the mile 16 marker was placed incorrectly, it would not affect your GPS data?
Doh! Guess I need another coffee this morning..
Mile 15 was 6:02 and mile 17 6:01- probably both a little long and 16 short- but just wanted to know if others doing manual laps saw the same thing- surprisingly only one other guy was doing manual laps in the group I was in. If that mile 16 was legit- shows how much easier pack running is! Best pack ever- they kept getting faster and faster- I lost them at mile 21- it was a sad parting- managed to stay about a minute and a half behind them.