Survival of the fittest wrote:
Point taken about start time in relation to sunrise. I agree, it should have been 90 minutes after sunrise like it will be in Paris. On Saturday in Orlando, that would have been 8:43 am.
I don't thiink there was a lot of carnage in Orlando. Most of the top people in a non-rabbitted race on warmish conditions ran like 1-2 minutes off their pb.
Did some people blow up? Of course, when a lot of people try to run over their heads to force themsleves to an Olympic team in a warmish conditions, the aftermath isn't going to be pretty. This isn't Ethiopia - we don't select teams based on fastest SBs.
I think the temps were great in Orlando to mimic what can be expected in Paris this summer based on the last 5 years of weather data.
I have compiled a spreadsheet showing you the last 10 years of weather data for the Paris Airport at 8 am (Olympic marathon start time) and 10 am for August 10th. During the last 5 years, it's normally been a little warmer in Paris than it was in Orlando but the sun won't be as high so it's a good tradeoff.
The second page of the spreadsheet also shows you how far off (or ahead) of their PRs each runner in the top 10 was.
