Geoffrey Mutai 2:03:02!!! in Boston Where Does it Rank?

Nice to know that Mutai can run 421 x 100m (consecutively) faster than I run my 100m strides on a track. Yeah, I'm slow.

ROJO:

Earlier this week/month either you or WOJO noted that true top marathoners today must break 2:05. Given your math, are you stating that Ryan Hall's not there yet?

Congrats to Hall, Daliva, and Goucher.

Goucher running a PR so soon after giving birth is particularly notable.

Maybe all the ghouls on LR will let up on her for a few days.

Did anyone see the results of the drug tests yet?

I don't know why everyone is saying the net downhill is such a big advantage in Boston: it was all about the wind today. That's what made the times so freaking fast. If the net downhill made for a faster course, then why(in every year but this one) are the times at Boston slower than those in the fastest flat marathons?

In a hypothetical scenario, say there's no wind whatsoever; exactly 0 mph for the entire race. Boston would be a slower course than the flat ones like Chicago, London, Berlin. The scattered uphills throughout the Boston course are enough to make it a slightly slower course than a perfectly flat one... assuming no wind on any of the courses. And most years the results reflect that.

Today's ridiculous times were ALL about the WIND.

Ryan Hall-Mindboggling, Spectacular. I bow down to the American king of the roads. IMHO, that performance is even with, if not greater, than Solinsky's 26:59. To blow away all those other elite Kenyans and Ethiopians like that is something never seen before.

Which Mutai is number one now? Can Kenya please send their top 10 marathoners to the next Olympics?

Bobby1 wrote:

I hate to burst your bubble but since wind resistance is exponential you can\'t use sprint speeds to calculate the difference for marathon speeds.

It\'s polynomial. The force exerted by the wind is proportional to the square of the runner\'s velocity.

2:05 for Mutai seems about right. And 2:07 for Hall. He's usually 2-3 minutes behind the leader; it was just under 2 minutes for this race. He finished where he usually finishes. Good run for Hall but not really better than London '08.

Weldon, Jonas wind calculator only takes into account the effect of air resistance (density) when running with a tailwind. It does not take into account of energy savings that a runner gets with a tailwind in a marathon.

I specualate that it is at lease 3 minutes possibly 4 minutes. Also the runner with the most surface area (Ryan Hall) would get the most benefit from a tailwind.

Ran Boston today...did not have a great run but can tell you that the wind was not constantly at our backs at 18+ mph the whole way. There was a mix of strong tailwinds, crosswinds, a few headwinds and times when it was relatively still. Also, please explain why the women did not seem to benefit to the same extent as the men, and I don't believe it could be entirely because they are generally smaller.

In my book, the races run today were simply awesome and no one will ever be able to exactly quantify how much the wind helped.

Why don't you think that the women didn't benefit? Of course they did.

rojo, winds measured at 10 meters above the ground (at the airport), not ground level. 19 mph is about 13 at ground level in the city (Logan has 16 mph and 20 gusting to 31, further inland it was 15, 14, even as low as 9, but gusting). An additional factor is that the speed of the wind was not always a 100% tailwind, so there is at least a 10% loss in usefulness for wind assistance (although the cooling was useful; have you have ever run hard on a treadmill with no fans around?). My guess is that the average tailwind at the runners level was about running speed or slightly lower, not 19mph, which means that the power of the wind was only 40% of your cited amount (since the power is quadratic in speed).

26mi235 wrote:

rojo, winds measured at 10 meters above the ground (at the airport), not ground level. 19 mph is about 13 at ground level in the city (Logan has 16 mph and 20 gusting to 31, further inland it was 15, 14, even as low as 9, but gusting). An additional factor is that the speed of the wind was not always a 100% tailwind, so there is at least a 10% loss in usefulness for wind assistance (although the cooling was useful; have you have ever run hard on a treadmill with no fans around?). My guess is that the average tailwind at the runners level was about running speed or slightly lower, not 19mph, which means that the power of the wind was only 40% of your cited amount (since the power is quadratic in speed).

Actually, this is not always true. In Boston especially with the road going through the city with tall buildings on either side, there is a wind tunnel effect which concentrates and amplifies the wind effect. The 19 mph at 10meters above ground can be as high as 27.8 mph at ground level depending on the density and height of the nearby buildings.

26mi235 wrote: My guess is that the average tailwind at the runners level was about running speed or slightly lower, not 19mph, which means that the power of the wind was only 40% of your cited amount (since the power is quadratic in speed).

Force of wind resistance is a function of the square of relative wind speed, but the power required to overcome it is cubic.

OK, so the men run the two fastest times in history and the women are nearly 7 minutes behind Radcliff's world best. How is the supposed benefit even remotely comparable?

Mutai's PR going in was 0:56 off the WR. Kilel's was 8:00.

cc1438 wrote:OK, so the men run the two fastest times in history and the women are nearly 7 minutes behind Radcliff's world best. How is the supposed benefit even remotely comparable?

cc1438 wrote:

OK, so the men run the two fastest times in history and the women are nearly 7 minutes behind Radcliff's world best. How is the supposed benefit even remotely comparable?

Logic fail.

Because if Paula had run today in the shape she was in when she ran 2.15 she would have run 2.11 to 2.13

If you add 2-3 minutes to Hall's time, it's still a great time for Boston. I think a fair conversion would be to say that Mutai probably would have ended up in the mid 2:05s with Hall in the mid 2:07s, which is still an incredible time for Boston. It will be interesting to see what he can run on a flatter course. Possible sub2:06 in London is an actual possibility now.

What's funny is that everyone thought he was going to choke hardcore because of his lack of coach, bad half, diet, and a bunch of other things, but that didn't happen at all. Hall really came out to run today. He fought hard and did a good job coming back on the pack multiple times. He was a big reason why 2:03:02 was actually set today, and all we talk about is how much the wind helped.