Boston analysis

rekrunner wrote:

...

Ken Young seems to have created controversy/support for saying it's "statistially valid", and not "excessively aided", but looking at the ARRS website, and you see that the times are also not "record quality". They will not be considered an "ARRS record". The times are included, and coupled with the bias, will be used to calculate world rankings and marathon comparisons.

It may not seem apparent, with all these numbers floating around, but the ARRS calculations seem to support Renato. The 2011 bias gives Mutai a "normalized" time of 2:04:37, and Mosop 2:04:41. On a course like Berlin, with an average bias of 68.5 seconds faster, these times become 2:03:28.5 and 2:03:32.5. Even London would have given Mutai a 2:03:58.2

Please note:

"Ken Young wrote: “It should also be noted that Geoffrey Mutai (KEN) who ran 2:03:02 (in Boston), was ranked #2 on the ARRS competitive rankings and he had been ranked #1 for four weeks earlier in the year. When Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) set the current world record of 2:03:58.2, he was ranked #10 in the world. Hence, it is not surprising that Mutai could be capable of significantly bettering the world record. "

If this statement by Ken Young does not make you laugh at his credibility and knowledge of the sport nothing will.

The ARRS calculations have remained hidden (as far as I have been able to see in these 16 pages). They are provided by someone who would write the above.

Sorry, but they are a joke.

Much better (and more transparent) analyses have been provided by the science of sports folks and even posters here such as Malmo and Wheres the Beef.

Wake me up when these runners match these times next year in Boston or pull a 2:01:xx in Berlin. Until then, the answer is so obvious as to be ridiculous.

As marathon courses go, Berlin and Boston are about as "apples vs. oranges" as they come. Until Mutai or Mosop run Berlin (or a similar "apple" course), we won't be able to compare directly, which is what us stats folks always want to do. Nonetheless, I personally find Mutai's "orange" to be every bit as impressive as Haile's "apple". I say that as perhaps the biggest Haile fan on this board (I pretty much owe The Great One my second competition/coaching career after watching him float to a 5000 WR in 1995).

Others may find this Boston too sweet or too sour, and I respect that as a matter of taste. Just don't call people childish names or distort their assessments because they can enjoy both.

The science of sport guys logic was equally flawed.

Having run Boston this year, and after all the talk of the wind, I was curious to compare my time with with that of the equal overall finisher from last year. Since there were about 1600 more runners starting the race this year, I compared by percentage of finishing position. I was near 7.5% and my time was 48 seconds faster than last years at the same percentage. I then randomly checked 5%, 10%, 15%, and 20% and this year was faster by 30, 69, 30, and 22 seconds. Most of the science I have seen to figure tailwind advantage seems to be figuring for a 15 to 20 MPH tailwind the entire 26.2 miles. You can feel a 15 to 20 MPH tailwind at your back and I rarely did. Most of the time I felt no wind which tells me that it was usually less than my running speed and sometimes a headwind. I realize that I was running in a huge mass of runners that probably blocked a lot of the wind but did the elites really get that much more advantage than the masses?

Check out this 2 year old quote from Ryan Hall:

"I know Boston is supposed to be a slower course than London, but a guy from Running Times sent me an analysis of splits at Boston, and it showed that it's possible to run up to 90 seconds faster at Boston, with the downhill course, if you time everything perfectly."

http://measure.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/87210332/m/20210747

YeeeehAWWW Pickle wrote:

The science of sport guys logic was equally flawed.

Where?

We hope everyone is enjoying a timely Easter break. Having wrapped up Boston in my previous post, I received a few emails and comments about another analysis of Boston, and thought I'd comment briefly on it here rather than in the discussion thread to previous posts or on Twitter!

So the following article was released today, an excerpt of which appears below, under the headline "Published Analysis shows Mutai's Boston time not excessively aided"

Writing in this week's "Analytical Distance Runner," the official ARRS publication, chief analyst Ken Young wrote: "It should also be noted that Geoffrey Mutai (KEN) who ran 2:03:02 (in Boston), was ranked #2 on the ARRS competitive rankings and he had been ranked #1 for four weeks earlier in the year. When Haile Gebrselassie (ETH) set the current world record of 2:03:58.2, he was ranked #10 in the world. Hence, it is not surprising that Mutai could be capable of significantly bettering the world record. Too bad that he ran this on a course that is not eligible for records."

So they are estimating an improvement of 1:37 for the men, which is then apparently not significantly aided, this is judged according to criteria that anything improved by more than 5 seconds/km is considered excessively aided.

Very quickly, some thoughts on this to fill the Easter weekend break!

Using ranking to justify times

First off, the astonishing statement is that Mutai would be expected to significant break the record because he was ranked first in the world, compared to Gebrselassie who was ranked tenth when he broke 2:04. Well, perhaps they've forgotten that Gebrselassie was already the world record holder. And that was only one year earlier! So they can take that 10th ranking and lob it into a trash can, because he was only 26 seconds off the 2:04 barrier when he stood on the start-line, a year earlier, and therefore was totally expected to have a shot at beating the time. Which he did, by 29 seconds.

Now, they're suggesting that a man ranked number 1 (and make no mistake, Geoffrey Mutai is pedigreed, and has "WR holder" written all over him), should break a record by 58 seconds given that his previous best was 56 seconds off the old one, but that he was ranked # 1...

That's poor inference if ever I have read it.

"Not excessively aided"? The 5 sec/km implication

The next big claim in the article is that they estimate an improvement of 1:37 which they suggest is not excessively aided. Granted, that's their estimate of how much Mutai benefited, and one can argue that he naturally achieved this leap in performance (I'd argue very strongly against this), but there are a couple of issues.

First, the overall conclusion (and heading of the article) is flawed because 1:37 is a big difference to make if that is their estimate. To illustrate, it takes the time from being greatest ever by almost a minute, to making Mutai only 6th fastest performer in history, so I don't know how they arrived at "not excessively aided"...it's a huge difference.

The thing about that is they've set what is a very poor (and possibly arbitrary) cut off for "excessively aided" at 5 sec/km. I am not sure why they've chosen this size, but when was the last time we saw the marathon world record bettered by 3:30? (I can tell you the answer - it was Jim Peters in 1952).

And if we did see a WR beaten by 3:30, what would our reaction be? "Measure the course again", I suspect! Imagine the 10k WR going from 26:17 to 25:27 in one run - we would think the guys had miscounted the number of laps and done 24 rather than 25! The 5,000m record improved by 25 seconds? When Gebrselassie broke it by 11 in 1995 is was staggering.

Now granted, I'm not sure whether the ARRS would apply their 5 sec/km principle to these events, but I'm illustrating the point - in a competitive sport with long history and access, performances at the level of a world record, in any event, are not improved by that kind of margin, ever. The marathon world record will not fall by more than 3 minutes. (Of course, it's possible that the record in some trail run or small event is broken by the amount, but the key is the "strength and depth" of the event, which is a function of how many people do it, over how long and what quality they are. The marathon is solid, it's too strong and too old for "weak records")

So while interesting, I think they have lost sight of the wood for the trees. The first mistake is to look at the depth of the field, when really, the issue is the top, top level of runner. The first five to ten men tell you what really happened, and they are the men who DO NOT improve by 5 seconds/km when already at the WR limit. As I said, the WR in the marathon has not leaped forward by 5 sec/km in almost 60 years.

In fact, since Dinsamo's record of 2:06:50 was bettered in 1998, SIX world records have been set, and the AVERAGE improvement has been 28.3 seconds. That's 0.7 sec/km. So a 5 sec/km margin might be fine for the masses, or even the near-elite, but for men trying to run faster than any human in history, 5 seconds per kilometer is, frankly, ridiculous. And that's why a 1:37 "aiding" is massive!

As mentioned, this is the result of the method they use, which I don't think is very sound to answer this question. That is, don't look at 43 elites, look at the very best in relation to the very best in previous years. So take a look at point 7 in this Letsrun.com recap of the week (the whole article is worth reading, in fact), because it presents that the wind had a very meaningful effect. A record that stood for many years (from 1994) is bettered by Robert Cheruiyot, then bettered again in 2010, and then suddenly, seven men are faster than that, five of them by more than a minute. That's excessive, in performance language, no matter what "stats" suggest.

The issue with statistics and meaningful differences

This is a classic case of whether statistical significance is more relevant than what is meaningfully different. A lot of times in sports science research, studies will use statistical methods to conclude that a treatment or method (say for example altitude training) is not beneficial because it results in an improvement of say 15 seconds over 5,000m compared to a control group that for example did sea-level training. And sure, there's a chance that these 15 seconds are down to 'chance' and thus not significant. But equally, any elite athlete will tell you that "IF" they can find a 15 second improvement, they'll take it. Most athletes will take an improvement of 5 seconds over 5,000m at the level of Olympic contender, because that's the difference between podium and back of the pack!

So there's a new method of statistics for sports science studies (and others, of course) where you now look for meaningful differences between groups. And I can pretty much guarantee that a 1:37 improvement for an athlete who was already at 2:05 is going to be a meaningful difference. Was it just a great day? Was it the wind? I've expressed my view that at that level, the margins are seconds, not minutes, and so I think the wind had a big effect.

However, as we've said before, Berlin and Chicago will tell us, because if Mutai and Mosop are in the same shape there, well, let's expect at 2:03:00 again...but until then, I believe the statisticians are missing something!

i hope the f*** that you aren't the sportsscienceshit guy posting

take offense or not, but i've read the laughable analysis often posted there

that chump is a physiologist, which on question of wind/undulations has shit to offer - no mathematician/physicist

yes, his analysis of ken-ass was good, but anyone with quantum of neurone has to go on prior expectation based on "coach" expectations

on that basis, jeff was in ~ wr shape off "stronger" than previous 2"04'55

that is all the amalgation of downhill/wind/inadvertent ryan wabbiting/racing/etc concludes to

jeffy put in a wr calibre run

YeeeehAWWW Pickle wrote:

The science of sport guys logic was equally flawed.

What are the flaws?

"Statistically valid" is just about the most vague lexeme imaginable.

When some says that "my wired aces got cracked ten times in a poker game. What is the chance of that happening?" I always respond with "it's 100 percent certain." Which leaves them slack-jawed. Your wired aces losing 10 times in a row are "statically valid" as well, but don't think that it's going to happen today, or tomorrow or next week or next month.

Running isn't an random set of experiences. Saying that "I examined the results of 43 runners over the last year, and since today's result didn't vary that much from the sum of their other events, I proclaim thee Boston Marathon in the year of our Lord 2011 'statically valid'" doesn't make sense at all.

Anyone statistician who wants to make such bold claims is surely willing to share the details of his metric. The silence is deafening.

"in no other branch of mathematics is it so easy for experts to blunder as in probability theory." - Martin Gardner

ventolin^3 wrote:

i hope the f*** that you aren't the sportsscienceshit guy posting

take offense or not, but i've read the laughable analysis often posted there

that chump is a physiologist, which on question of wind/undulations has shit to offer - no mathematician/physicist

yes, his analysis of ken-ass was good, but anyone with quantum of neurone has to go on prior expectation based on "coach" expectations

on that basis, jeff was in ~ wr shape off "stronger" than previous 2"04'55

that is all the amalgation of downhill/wind/inadvertent ryan wabbiting/racing/etc concludes to

jeffy put in a wr calibre run

I hope the f*** you aren't the real ventolin. If you are, you have rather badly damaged your credibility here on LRC.

What exactly have you done in your post? Well,

1) dropped the f-bomb

2) resorted to name calling

3) turned to authority/qualifications of the poster rather than the content of the post

4) seemingly made a claim about "jeffy" being ready for a world record calibre run without even a shred of evidence other than taking his coach's word for it.

There is no substance in your post, but quite a bit of venom.

Again, I hope that you are not the real ventolin but merely a troll trying to give V3 a bad name.

ventolin^3 wrote:

i hope the f*** that you aren't the sportsscienceshit guy posting

take offense or not, but i've read the laughable analysis often posted there

that chump is a physiologist, which on question of wind/undulations has shit to offer - no mathematician/physicist

yes, his analysis of ken-ass was good, but anyone with quantum of neurone has to go on prior expectation based on "coach" expectations

on that basis, jeff was in ~ wr shape off "stronger" than previous 2"04'55

that is all the amalgation of downhill/wind/inadvertent ryan wabbiting/racing/etc concludes to

jeffy put in a wr calibre run

Ummm...where's the beef?

malmo wrote:

It's endless with you. You are not even engaged in the conversation. The chart you are looking at is from LAST year. This year's chart has already been posted in this thread.

Go to the top right corner of the message board and click on "Forum Options". Then Click the "Show Images" radio button so that you can see the two charts side-by-side on the message board.

Image:

http://i55.tinypic.com/1t819c.jpg

Image:

http://i51.tinypic.com/246q5wy.jpg

Looks like you are using Boston Airport data which appear to be about the highest wind reading in the area - out on the coast seems it was more windy. Wind appears to be much less if you look at:

Hopkinton 7mph WNW @ 10am

Wellsley 2-10 mph SW @ 11am

Newton 6-10mph WSW @ 11:30

Hopkinton data obviously flatlined - disregard.

Yes, ventolin, but keep in mind that Mr. Canova has acknowledged that he cares more about his athletes not believing in limitations than he does about the truth...nothing he says regarding his athletes is to be taken at face value.

The fact that Mutai is not even Canova's athlete, but simply one who narrowly defeated his athlete Mosop, is all you need to know about his appraisal of Mutai's performance, which is really nothing more than an attempt to praise Mosop, and indirectly, himself, and inflate Mosop's confidence, which the future will prove to be an exercise in delusion, by which I mean that Mosop, who is supremely talented, will NEVER break 2:04 in the marathon...and morons will say he blew his wad at Boston, which may be true, but his wad was blown partly by the wind...

bostonpublic wrote:

.......Elites................|.....Top 60 non-Elites..

....2011.2010.2009.2008.2007.|2011 2010 2009 2008 2007

.5k 5:09 5:05 5:03 5:12 5:18 |5:32 5:31 5:32 5:32 5:33

10k 5:03 5:10 5:09 5:03 5:17 |5:32 5:37 5:34 5:33 5:36

15k 5:09 5:07 5:13 5:06 5:17 |5:33 5:36 5:39 5:35 5:40

20k 5:13 5:12 5:17 5:10 5:27 |5:36 5:38 5:41 5:37 5:45

25k 5:12 5:13 5:19 5:14 5:17 |5:34 5:40 5:42 5:38 5:46

30k 5:20 5:24 5:25 5:26 5:29 |5:42 5:47 5:51 5:46 5:56

35k 5:27 5:33 5:42 5:43 5:36 |5:51 5:54 6:02 5:56 6:05

40k 5:39 5:47 5:47 5:47 5:52 |5:52 5:54 6:02 5:55 6:11

Avg 5:16 5:20 5:23 5:20 5:27 |5:39 5:42 5:46 5:42 5:49

I see someone has already copied my table here into this thread - changed a few of my words around.

Note the Ryan Hall effect last 3 years on the first 5k for the Elites.

I happened to run 07,08,10 so I pulled up the weather data on Sporstracks to see the wind effect using Boston Airport data (KBOS on Weatherunderground). I pulled someone elses data off GarminConnect into sportstracks so it could pull the weather data for 2009 2011:

2007 average 47°F, 22 mph average wind with a net 9.2 mph headwind

2008 average 48°F, 7.7 mph average wind with a net 6.6 mph headwind

2009 average 47°F, 16.4 mph average wind with a net 9.2 mph headwind

2010 average 52°F, 15.4 mph average wind with a net 3.8mph tailwind

2011 average 52°F, 18.4 mph average wind with a net 16.6 mph tailwind

2010 looks like the closest thing to Boston without a headwind (small tailwind). Based on the Non-Elite data of 3 seconds/mile delta between 2011 and 2010 ~ 90 seconds assist - maybe add a little since 2010 had a slight tailwind so call it 2 minutes help over a no-wind Boston. That's probably in the right ballpark.

I believe the flaw with the "sportsscientists", along with everyone else reading Dave Monti's second-hand interpretation, is that they are misinterpreting the purpose and the scope, and therefore overreacting to the terms "excessively wind-aided" and "statistically valid".

Without having read Ken Young's words at the "Analytical Distance Runner", as far as I can tell, "excessively aided" is Dave Monti's claim. Ken Young claims, consistent with what is described at the website, is that the times are "statistically valid" for their limited purposes, and with corrections, inclusion in other statistical calculations.

The "sportsscientists" are right, when they say that 1:37 is not negligible when talking about world best performances, but that's not what's going on here. "Statistically valid" and "not excessively aided" doesn't mean that the ARRS assumes the raw net time is acceptable, say as a world record.

The race times at ARRS are put into one of three categories:

- Record quality

- Statistically valid

- Statistically invalid

"Statistically valid" means the times (coupled with the bias) will be used in other calculations, i.e. "world ranking" calculations, annual performance listings (asterisked with an "a"), all time performance listings, etc., but the raw time will not be included in the ARRS national or world records, because they are not of "record quality". If the computed bias were more, say 5:00, then ARRS would reject the times as not valid for any of their statistical purposes, and list the times with an "x" as notable performances.

At ARRS, Mutai's normalized "unbiased" time is 2:04:37. This compares to Geb's "unbiased" time of 2:04:10, and Wanjiru's "unbiased" time of 2:04:00. (see

http://www.arrs.net/AllTime/ATB_Mara.htm

for the "unbiased" and "real" times up to Dec. 2010) They consider Wanjiru's Beijing performance better than Geb's world record in Berlin, and Mutai and Mosop will only merit 5th and 6th best all time performance.

With statistical calculations, there are always errors and uncertainties, but this looks like they are taking the best approach attempting to compare "apples" with "oranges", by estimating the long term and short term bias due to course difficulty, and weather conditions, and normalizing the times by eliminating the bias.

I don't know the method, and I'm not saying there still may be large errors, but it shouldn't be too hard to guess, (but maybe harder to duplicate) that they are using something like the IAAF scoring tables (maybe on "normalized" times) to come up with expected results, based on performances within one year, then comparing the expected results to the real results to compute a "race day" bias. With enough data, spanning events dating back to 1980, you can also come up with "average" course biases, indicating the course difficulty, for that time of year. Of course you also need to add some kind of filters to reject bad data points, due to excessive wind, bad performances on the day, short courses, etc.

What the heck wrote:seemingly made a claim about "jeffy" being ready for a world record calibre run without even a shred of evidence other than taking his coach's word for it

you clearly don't follow the sport

for almost months now, word has been that jeffy was in awesome shape

yes, canova was mostly the source, but he praised him to high heaven at kenyan x-c trials & when he got beat in worlds, canova stated that his main target was boston & he didn't have the speed to win a sprint in a "slowish" x-c race, as he was running that race off his M training - the guy obviously only had boston on his mind

anyone with a clue wouda realised jeffy, a proven 2"04'55 guy was going to drop a bomb when he got to boston

i also got swallowed up in longstanding assertion boston was a slow course, so i wasn't expecting a wr, but certainly some sort of jaw-dropping performance - certainly a new course record & probable win by close to a minute ( i hadn't really thought much about how moses may fare, but just shows what terrific form he also was in )

now, the assertion boston is a slow course has to be re-examined - it is a net downhill of 450' & yes many posters say the downhill at the end is a killer, but then again, these 2 guys may be the 0.01% in the world who actually run well on the downhills - there is no fixed law stating everyone must struggle on the last big downhill

anyone who doesn't believe that jeffy wasn't in ~ wr shape coming to boston is deluding themselves

forget the time or the wind/hills/downhill/etc, the final conclusion has to be a guy came here in ~ wr shape from previous postings & he delivered a performance commensurate with the anticipation

agip wrote:

a vote for the obvious here - it was the wind.

UNLESS Mutai and others start running 2:03x - then, we should revisit the thread.

No question the wind helped- my point is, wind, point to point, hills up and down, should be an accepted part of road racing and we should celebrate the performance. If these people are truly worthy of the performances they'll run them again.

chet wrote:Yes, ventolin, but keep in mind that Mr. Canova has acknowledged that he cares more about his athletes not believing in limitations than he does about the truth...nothing he says regarding his athletes is to be taken at face value.

chet

that is harsh on canova - he was telling us for a long while how good jeffy was

i for one am in camp that geb's wr is not in any way any sort of "limit" - 2 pretty much unknown kenyans have run within 30s off it & no disrespect to them, they coudn't carry the jockstrap of a prime wanjiru/lel & i'd even go back as far as guys like evans rutto/felix limo who were in a different class to the kwambais of this world

low/mid-2"03 shouda been done by one of these guys, but they never got a sniff of berlin in geb's day or only held their form for a year or 2