A viewer sent us the following with some interesting thoughts on perhaps why the rabbits went out so fast:
In puzzling over why Geb went out too fast in Dubai, I think both he and the pacemakers share the blame of bad judgment. What a badly blown opportunity - Geb was in shape to break the record, the course was great, and the weather cooperated. I do wonder, however, if the race organizers (maybe through lack of experience??) played a role in Geb's going out too fast: when I read Martin Fagan's account of the race, this really jumped out at me:
“I had written my projected time splits on my hand and I had expected that there would be time clocks at certain points on the course and so I was not wearing a watch. However, there were no clocks on the course and I found that a bit difficult.”
Could the race coordinators really have made such a basic mistake? If they had mile markers, was there anyone calling out mile splits? Of course, the duty of pacemakers is to wear watches and look at mile splits, but the race coordinators in Dubai seemed to have overlooked something that would have helped prevent Geb's suicidal start.
Just a thought,
David