Hobby jogger turned olympic trials qualifier

Minimalist North wrote:

Great story, but your "hobby jogger" snide snobby lead in shows you have a lot less class than the Olympic trial qualifier, you imbecile.

Uhhhh....ya...so you didn't actually watch the video, did you? Who really is the imbecile? I vote for Minimalist North.

Most H.S. track coaches will tell you that they could put together a better track team from the kids walking the hallways. I ran on a corporate team once and recruited a fellow employee becasue she had a perfect middle distance runner's body and I knew she was into working out. She ran 20:05 in her first 5k with out doing one single workout. In that first 5k, she ran with the top women (sub-elites) for about a mile and a half and walked the last mile. In her next 5k, which was 2 weeks later, she had 5 or 6 workouts under her belt and she ran with me and finished in 18:05. By the middle of the summer she was down to 17:15; in the fall she ran in a one of the nation's top 10 milers, this was her first race over 5K and she finished 3rd in her age group.

Here is the kicker, she was in her mid-30s with 2 kids, she had never been more than an occassional jogger, never ran or did any competitive sports in H.S. or college and even when she was running consistent 17x 5ks, she was only running at most 25mpw. In America, people have so many options that there are millions of talented people who will never be more than casual joggers if not for luck.

Btw, this particular woman was a personal trainer, yoga instructor and sometimes taught 2 areobic classes back to back. By the end of the year she had stopped running competitively becasue it was cutting into her feeelance areobics instructor business.

So. . . you're saying she has eligibility left?

hidey hoooo wrote:

This isn't logic-- it's based on real stats. Mercier calculator, 4 years of real data.

You're just about the only person in the world who takes seriously the Mercier calculator. In fact, you and I are two of a small handful of people who have even heard of it.

I've reviewed the statistical and mathematical basis for the Mercier calculator. It's a primitive little toy, based on absurd assumptions and an extremely small data base.

Avocado\'s Number wrote:

You're just about the only person in the world who takes seriously the Mercier calculator. In fact, you and I are two of a small handful of people who have even heard of it.

I've reviewed the statistical and mathematical basis for the Mercier calculator. It's a primitive little toy, based on absurd assumptions and an extremely small data base.

Mr. My-head-and-ego-are-bigger-than-an-Avocado, call it what you will, but I hope you learn some day that you will never win an argument using opinion rather than fact.

Here are some facts.

The Mercier calculator uses a total of twenty data points for each event. For the men's marathon, those data points are all in the range of about 2:05 to 2:10. For the women's marathon, those data points are all in the range of 2:20 to 2:30. All measurements and equivalencies of performances outside the range of those data points are based on crude mathematical extrapolations, not distributions of actual performances.

It's not surprising that the Mercier calculator rates Paula's performance in the 2003 London marathon as the equivalent of a sub-2:00 marathon by a man. The Mercier calculator doesn't even recognize that any woman has ever broken 2:20 in the marathon.

A reasonably bright grade-schooler could, in the course of an afternoon, construct a calculator that better reflects the distribution of men's and women's marathon times and more accurately "equates" performances of men and women based on where those performances lie on their respective distribution curves. Of course, as many others have pointed out, the significance of such purported equivalencies is, to say the least, open to serious debate.

For people who care about this stuff, the IAAF's tables provide a much more sophisticated basis upon which to compare performances. I am very familiar with the IAAF's caveats about limitations on using the tables, and also recognize how the tables can be misused. But I'm not aware of any better, or more current, basis for comparing times across a range of men's and women's events. Certainly, the Mercier calculator isn't in the running.

Vortex wrote:

A 2:38 is nearly a minute per mile slower than a 2:15. Do you also think that a woman running a 4:40 mile has done the equivalent of El G's world record? Lol.

Do you not understand percentages? A 2:38 is 17% slower than 3:43.

17% slower than 3:43 gives you 4:21.

bluemt95 wrote:

You said it wrote:

Amen! Everyone on this board is a f***ing hobby jogger!!!

Agree! Unless you make a living at it, it's your hobby. *blows mind of 95% of Letsrun community*

That does not equate a hobby jogger, if you live and breathe running you are a runner not a hobbyist.

Freelove wrote:

Do you not understand percentages? A 2:38 is 17% slower than 3:43.

17% slower than 3:43 gives you 4:21.

*2:38 is 17% slower than 2:15

Incarnate Word Runner wrote:

bluemt95 wrote:

Agree! Unless you make a living at it, it's your hobby. *blows mind of 95% of Letsrun community*

That does not equate a hobby jogger, if you live and breathe running you are a runner not a hobbyist.

Umm no. That means that you have a favorite hobby, which is running. Favorite hobbies are good. Running is my favorite hobby. That's why I am at work posting on forums about running, and some would say I live and breathe running. But it is still a hobby.

From

- hob·by 1 (hb)n. pl. hob·bies. An activity or interest pursued outside one's regular occupation and engaged in primarily for pleasure./b

Notice "outside one's regular occupation". This assumes that you have a "real" job and this "real" job is how you make a living.

So I repeat, unless you make a living at it, it's your hobby.

But she can beat YOU, right?

Incarnate Word Runner wrote:

That does not equate a hobby jogger, if you live and breathe running you are a runner not a hobbyist.

If you are not a professional runner and "you live and breathe running" then you certainly are not a hobbyist - you are a person with high-functioning autism.

U a hobbyist punk

It doesn't matter how many data points they used. They applied a rank order method using real data over several years. That makes it statistically valid, given the difference in populations. If you look at historical data from each year in the marathon (http://www.arrs.net/YR_Mara.htm ), there is clearly difference in time comparing the 1st, 5th, 10th, 20th.... 100th best male vs. female. In fact, if you look at years 2000 vs. 2010, even with improving depth on both sides, there's still a consistent difference such that you could never use a linear comparison between genders.

Everything else you said is opinion and moot. Mercier recognizes that it's the only valid calculator that can compare genders. Why? Because it uses a rank order method. So what if it extrapolates beyond the world rankings or above. Compared to other statistical models (~Stanford biologist), the Mercier calculator further confirms how superior Paula's time is and much closer to the predicted limit.

As long as they use a rank order method....

This is only your opinion. The IAAF tables weren't designed to compare between genders (and they acknowledge this)-- only between events for a single gender.

Well, how'd she run?

DNF'd with a hamstring injury.

Too bad. She'll motor on.

SD native. wrote:

YiOu Wang

That's what she said.