GIVE THOSE 5th AVE GUYS CREDIT!!

good question

this question has been asked for decades+ about this race & other road runs

from article :

no offence to kellogg et al, but if there is 0 wind, the downhill doesn't help much

i remember watching maree on tv win the 1st one in still course record 3'47.52

he was in 2nd best shape of his life those few days ( better than '83 when running 3'31.24WR ) & had walloped ovett in rieti 3'48.83 v 3'50.23 & ovett made no excuses

it was all done in last 109+, where maree split 3'34.6+

( which is 3'50.2+ & dragged that down to 3'48.83 )

maree probably in 3'47-mid/high shape that day if faster pace from gun

so no way the 5th avenue mile is ~4s faster if no wind

no offence to kellogg et all but uphill/downhll is NOT amenable to any serious answer from just stats as you can never guarantee same guys are in same shape on different days, nor account for differing winds, etc

nor is it amenable to a physiological answer as i've seen lot of gobbledygook in past of VO2 methods to offer some semblance of an answer

it needs physics

i'll freely admit i've tried for years, all sorts of methods using physics to get an answer using kinetic/potential energies, etc & not really got anywhere

however, yesterday sat down with large glass of single-malt & within minutes an answer came to me !

it's just basic high-school physics & i'm annoyed i coudn't figure it out years ago

i apologise if anyone has posted this method before but i have done lots of searches in past & not found it, just stats/physiological methods

lets' make things simple & assume guy is a

3'50.00

on a track

lets assume 5th avenue mile is 27' downhill from gun to tape in 5,280'

( it isn't from gun-to-tape but you want a general method for uphill/downhill )

the speed of the guy on track is 1609.344 / 230 =

6.997 m/s

now, the key is to calculate what vector proportion of gravity aids/hinders the run :

it is very simple : from similar triangles, you multiply 9.81m/s^2 ( gravity ) by the factor :

27 / 5,280

for the vector of gravity downhill which is helping ->

9.81 * ( 27 / 5,280 ) =

0.050 m/s

therefore, speed on the road is :

6.997 + 0.050 =

7.047 m/s

therefore, time for the road mile is :

1609.344 / 7.0437 =

3'48.36

therefore, for a 3'50.00 track guy, the course is quicker by

1.64s

& you can apply the same near enough to a 3'52.00 track guy, etc ( or work it out yourself )

i apologise once again if someone has posted this method before

calculo wrote:

it is very simple : from similar triangles, you multiply 9.81m/s^2 ( gravity ) by the factor :

27 / 5,280

for the vector of gravity downhill which is helping ->

9.81 * ( 27 / 5,280 ) =

0.050 m/s

Dimensional analysis fail

Headwind Moses wrote:

If Galen, who never broke 1:50 and didn't have a decent kick for most of his college career, can run 3:50i, than Jenkins, who always has wheels at the end and is in 13:00 shape can run 3:49 with Murphy and BB rabbiting through 1:53. Times are legit, even a little slow IMO. No curves (which leads to less tactical, more balls-out), but also they are running in flats on pavement, not Monaco Mondo!

Jenny Simpson beat Muir running the equivalent of 3:59, they both have run consistently faster than that in the DL.

Galen ran 1:49 indoors in college when he was barely a sub-4 guy.

It is not a joke. You are adding a speed and an acceleration. You can't do that. I am pointing out why your analysis is wrong because you multiplied acceleration by a scalar and output velocity

You need to integrate the acceleration over the time accelerating, but you need to add in the force created by the additional wind resistance from going faster along with the greater energy loss upon foot strike there is probably an easy derivable formula for the max speed reached at same effort once youve gone down the hill long enough to reach that max speed and reach equilibrium where the effect of gravity is cancelled out by the new additional forces or limits of leg turnover etc

it is

eh ???

the only function of acceleration is to modify the speed to get a new speed

eh ??

tell newton he was wrong with his laws

is this a joke ???

have you not heard of vector analysis ???

you calculate the vector component of acceleration down the slope & add to speed

no

you don't

we assume constant speed from gun for 3'50 on track & same for down the slope

constant speed on track is equilibriumed to even pace by air-resistance

with your method, we woud be looking at guy running at ~ 13m/s by 120s just from newton !!!

faster than bolt has ever achieved in his life !!!

there is a constant acceleration of 0.05 m/s^2 which is added constantly to speed of 3'50 man down the slope which is equilibriumed by air-resistance to give constant 3'48+ pace

you forget that the 3'50-speed is equilibiumed by air-resistance so guy runs constant 3'50 pace on track

it is same down the slope

the extra 0.05m/s has to be added constantly to 3'50 speed & is equilibriumed by air resistance to give 3'48+

i did

air resistance is why on track speed is limited to 3'50 & on slope to 3'48+

if same O2 concentration but 1/2 the air density, the guys woud be running possibly 1 minute faster !!

now you are talking gobbledygook

more gobbledygook

3'50 on track is equilibriumed by air-resistance

3'48+ down the slope is equilibriumed by same phenomena of air-resistance otherwise they woud be running at 13m/s by 120s of running

By your logic a person jumping off a bridge will fall at exactly 9.8 m/s the whole way down.

Blankenship runs 3:34 = 3:51 mile in uneven-paced race; ran 3:53.9 at NYRR.

rojo clueless at this. 5th Ave times are LEGIT.

Your error wrote:By your logic a person jumping off a bridge will fall at exactly 9.8 m/s the whole way down

is this a joke ???

learn to think

that is terminal velocity of ~ 190 mph if high enough bridge equilibriumed by air-resistance instead of asymptoting to 186,000 miles/sec

the situation for running 3'50 on track or 3'48+ down the slope is same

clockings on track & slope & bridge all equilibriumed out because of air-resistance to

- 3'50.0

- 3'48.3+

- 190 mph

Headwind Moses wrote:

Blankenship runs 3:34 = 3:51 mile in uneven-paced race; ran 3:53.9 at NYRR.

rojo clueless at this. 5th Ave times are LEGIT.

Times were more than likely legit. At most 1 or 2 sec off.

Rojo is in the business of generating interest in his site. Even if he doesn't really believe something to be true, he likely plays devil's advocate on occasion to get people riled up enough to continue to visit the boards.

In this case it worked!

I did an analysis several years ago and concluded 5th Ave was 'about' equal to a track mile when there is no wind. I think there have been other analyses that have concluded the same thing as well. The field is always great and because there are no rounds, the field is slightly below and sometimes better than a global championship final. The wind is what makes the real difference, and much more so than on a track; depending on which way its blowing is reflected in the times. While there are a few athletes who have set massive PRs on 5th Ave., those were usually U.S. athletes running in the most competitive race they have ever been in and usually had a tailwind. Conversely, most of your true elite athletes don't set mile PRs on 5th Ave.

With all of that said, the only sense I can make out of Jennings time is that he a better miler than most of us thought and he had the race of his life.

analysis was important, as i believe it "pushed" slope-analysis on

there was a "kernel" for decades when tim monty ran 9.96 on a downhill for WJR

it was DQ'ed as downhill, but i always followed his runs

someone impress me :

what is

10.00

run on smooth downhill track of 1m slope, for flat-level track 100 ?

I recall Sydney Maree won the first 5th Avenue mile in 3:47. At the time he had a 3:48 pr in the mile on the track. The down hill slope makes it an aided course but it can't help dramatically otherwise the course record would be much faster than the mile world record and it is not.

This years race might have been the most exciting mile I have ever watched. It had the Olympic Gold medalist and the 800 Bronze medalist. I watched it on youtube and I have to say it was more entertaining than watching any Diamond League mile or 1500 the last 30 years.

Maybe what the sport needs to do is run more miles with this format of bonuses for leading at 400, 800, and 1200. Instead of paying rabbits that drop out to pace set record attempts in what is a boring time trial.

George Atlas wrote:

I recall Sydney Maree won the first 5th Avenue mile in 3:47. At the time he had a 3:48 pr in the mile on the track. The down hill slope makes it an aided course but it can't help dramatically otherwise the course record would be much faster than the mile world record and it is not.

This years race might have been the most exciting mile I have ever watched. It had the Olympic Gold medalist and the 800 Bronze medalist. I watched it on youtube and I have to say it was more entertaining than watching any Diamond League mile or 1500 the last 30 years.

Maybe what the sport needs to do is run more miles with this format of bonuses for leading at 400, 800, and 1200. Instead of paying rabbits that drop out to pace set record attempts in what is a boring time trial.

It was extremely entertaining!

From the fast first quarter to the battle between Olympians Blankenship and Murphy for the 800 bonus. Then the Olympic Gold Medalist taking charge and keeping the pace hot. Then just when you think Centro has total control and is on his way to a win, Colby Alexander in his white headband puts in a surge and with 160 meters to go we have a race!

But wait! Centro is about to get caught again! First by his former Oregon teammate, Colby, and now by his NOP teammate, Eric Jenkins!

With the crowd noise level drowning out the footsteps of Jenkins, neither Centro or Colby heard Jenkins. With less than 10 meters left Centro had pulled a step or two ahead of Colby and Centro looked left to make sure Colby wasn't coming back on him and just as he looked left....

I'm with you George Atlas. That was one entertaining race!

Because I'm bored.

If we treat him as an object of consistent acceleration (which he certainly is not, the acceleration component of the downhill slope in reality has to be applied to each stride he makes rather than considered one smooth segment over the entirety of the race):

The acceleration added due to the slope would be g * sin(.01) or 0.09799, an acceleration that occurs for 10 seconds for an increase in final velocity of 0.9799 m/s (let's call it 0.98 m/s). This means that his average increase in velocity is 0.49 m/s. Because his speed over the race was 10 m/s, without the incline he would have run (10 - 0.49) m/s or 9.51 m/s which results in a 10.52 second 100m.

Xanax wrote:

Because I'm bored.

If we treat him as an object of consistent acceleration (which he certainly is not, the acceleration component of the downhill slope in reality has to be applied to each stride he makes rather than considered one smooth segment over the entirety of the race):

The acceleration added due to the slope would be g * sin(.01) or 0.09799, an acceleration that occurs for 10 seconds for an increase in final velocity of 0.9799 m/s (let's call it 0.98 m/s). This means that his average increase in velocity is 0.49 m/s. Because his speed over the race was 10 m/s, without the incline he would have run (10 - 0.49) m/s or 9.51 m/s which results in a 10.52 second 100m.

Wait a second here.

Let's make the "math teacher" rojo do your math problems.

He can post his results.

This will really be fun!

It looks he has trouble telling which number is larger between 2 numbers…or he does not know the difference between 5 and 6…or I don't really care anymore now.

Oh well.

sir

i was looking for more like 10.10 or 9.90 dependent on up/down slope...

perhaps i'm wrong assuming that a 10.00 who runs a 1m downhill ends up at

...

more interesting for real life elites

what is a M course which is 100m downhill smoothly from 0 - 42,195m won in

2"05'00

worth for flat-track ?

correction needed

the method i suggested works just fine for the small angles involved in actual downhill/uphill races but will fail with absurd uphills approaching 40 degrees where method will yield 0m/s speed or -ve speed but we know that it's still possible to run up a 40 degree incline

so, instead of subtracting the gravity effect for a new speed, it is better to apply a ratio factor to accommodate huge uphills & get more accurate result from more accurate method

let's use 4'00.00 for 1500 on track which yields nice speed of 6.25m/s ( also is oft quoted ~ 4'20-mile )

let's compare ole method with new for a different uphills :

- road 1500 with uphill of 10m :

ole method -> new speed = 6.25 - ( 9.81 * 10 / 1500 ) = 6.1846m/s ->4'02.58

new method -> speed adjustment is ( 9.81 * 10 / 1500 ) = 0.0654m/s

adjustment of 0.0654 / 6.25 = 0.010464 or factor of 1.010464 -> new time ->

240 * 1.010464 = 4'02.51

which we can see is virtually same as ole method

however, we can see the divergence with bigger inclines :

- road 1500 with uphill of 50m :

ole method -> new speed = 6.25 - ( 9.81 * 50 / 1500 ) = 5.923m/s ->4'13.25

new method -> speed adjustment is ( 9.81 * 50 / 1500 ) = 0.327m/s

adjustment of 0.327 / 6.25 = 0.05232 or factor of 1.05232 -> new time ->

240 * 1.05232 = 4'12.56

- road 1500 with uphill of 100m :

ole method -> new speed = 6.25 - ( 9.81 * 100 / 1500 ) = 5.596m/s ->4'28.05

new method -> speed adjustment is ( 9.81 * 100 / 1500 ) = 0.654m/s

adjustment of 0.654 / 6.25 = 0.10464 or factor of 1.10464 -> new time ->

240 * 1.10464 = 4'25.11

lets cut to chase & go for massive incline of 1000m in a 1500 :

- road 1500 with uphill of 1000m :

ole method -> new speed = 6.25 - ( 9.81 * 1000 / 1500 ) = -0.29m/s

which is wrong, as this is saying runner can't go up this incline

new method -> speed adjustment is ( 9.81 * 1000 / 1500 ) = 6.54m/s

adjustment of 6.54 / 6.25 = 1.0464 or factor of 2.0464 -> new time ->

240 * 2.0464 = 8'11.136

this methods shows that ignoring the friction problems of clinging onto road, that it is still possible to run up a huge incline