Serena Burla just ran 2:26:53 for 4th in the Osaka Women's Marathon.

rjm33 wrote:

You think that all Boston runs should not be discussed and maybe should be banned as a discussion topic.

PERIOD.

I heard a rumor that Ryan Hall said that he counts his 2:04 marathon in Boston as his PR…even though there was a wind at his back with a course that is net downhill and not record eligible.

Why does Ryan Hall say that???

Answer:

1) Ryan Hall drinks a lot of MUSCLE MILK.

I'm not saying boston runs shouldn't be discussed at all, I'm saying in the context of an all-time record list they have no place (or best case with an asterisk).

The asterisks should start here:

Where are all of Renato's SPECIAL KENYANS AND ETHIOPIANS BORN, LIVING, AND DOING HIGH VOLUME-HIGH INTENSITY TRAINING WITH SPECIAL BLOCKS, ETC., ETC., AT HIGH ALTITUDE???

Marathon all time list:

1 2:15:25 Paula Radcliffe GBR 17.12.73 1 London 13.04.2003

2 2:17:18 Paula Radcliffe GBR 17.12.73 1 Chicago 0,571782407

3 2:17:42 Paula Radcliffe GBR 17.12.73 1 London 0,73431713

4 2:18:20 Liliya Shobukhova RUS 13.11.77 Chicago 09.10.2011

5 2:18:37 Mary Keitany KEN 18.01.82 1 London 0,942731481

6 2:18:47 Catherine N'dereba KEN 21.07.72 1 Chicago 0,321770833

7 2:18:56 Paula Radcliffe GBR 17.12.73 1 London 14.04.2002

8 2:18:57a Rita Sitienei Jeptoo KEN 15.02.81 1 Boston 21.04.2014

Two of the top five women of all-time (= 40%) have been banned for doping with EPO.

Why are a British woman and a Russian EPO doper at the top of the list???

Answer:

http://sportsscientists.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Capture-400x256.png

http://i4.irishmirror.ie/incoming/article6915888.ece/ALTERNATES/s1200/PaulaMain.jpg

PERIOD.

Ok. Raise your hand if you had a rare malignant cancerous tumor removed from your hamstring and then fought your way back to run a top time for the US and fourth overall at a very competitive international marathon?

I thought son.

Amazing run for Serena. Her determination is absolutely inspiring.

gfhfrgt wrote:

So you're seriously claiming that a women's time eleven minutes off the world record is equivalent to a men's time only five minutes off the world record? Clearly the mercier table isn't so useful in making comparisons across genders in events where there's such an enormous disparity in competitive depth as in the marathon. Better to come up with an equivalent based on a given time's percentage from the world record.

This isn't to take anything away from Burla's performance, which is obviously fantastic. Congrats to her on a gritty run.

Yes I am, because stats are facts and indisputable. If they don't fit a normal distribution, you absolutely have to use another appropriate means of comparison, of which rank ordering (as something like the Mercier calculator does) is appropriate. "Lack of competitive depth" amongst women is moot nowadays-- there's more women than men in the Open age category (19-39) in the marathon (according to Running USA).

Precious Roy wrote:

Ok. Raise your hand if you had a rare malignant cancerous tumor removed from your hamstring and then fought your way back to run a top time for the US and fourth overall at a very competitive international marathon?

I thought son.

Amazing run for Serena. Her determination is absolutely inspiring.

I wonder what cocktail she was given to fight and recover from cancer. Perhaps something that aided her running. Reminds me of a certain bicyclist.

You're an idiot.

She was second at the USATF Championships half-marathon in Houston in 2010 in 1:10 right behind Shalene Flanegan and planning to run Boston that spring. She was having some issues with her leg and got checked out a few days later. That's when she was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor in her hamstring. She had surgery to remove the tumor shortly thereafter and began the road to recovery.

A) She was already good and B) there were no drugs.

Again, you're an idiot.

Great person, great personal story, great runner.

Skeptic Cull wrote:

The times that I think are more than 50% chance of being clean are 2:04 for men, 2:19 for women.

Which happen to be the American records. How typical.

boring wrote:

yawn, over 11 minutes over the world record. An american man who ran 2:14 wouldn't even get a thread

0/10

Trumpkek wrote:

Precious Roy wrote:

Ok. Raise your hand if you had a rare malignant cancerous tumor removed from your hamstring and then fought your way back to run a top time for the US and fourth overall at a very competitive international marathon?

I thought son.

Amazing run for Serena. Her determination is absolutely inspiring.

I wonder what cocktail she was given to fight and recover from cancer. Perhaps something that aided her running. Reminds me of a certain bicyclist.

You are now going to attack Serena Burla and accuse her of doping?

These two share nothing in common.

Serena is at the opposite end of the spectrum from Lance.

Serena won the 2013 US Half-marathon championships and was 10th in the marathon at the 2015 Beijing World Championships.

Serena is the real deal.

Letsrun trolls don't settle for the bottom of the barrel. They auger through the bottom, then through the floorboards to get at the septic tank below. Once the dank and odiferous effluent spews out, they they are finally, if temporarily, satisfied with their odious work.

Trumpkek wrote:

Precious Roy wrote:

Ok. Raise your hand if you had a rare malignant cancerous tumor removed from your hamstring and then fought your way back to run a top time for the US and fourth overall at a very competitive international marathon?

I thought son.

Amazing run for Serena. Her determination is absolutely inspiring.

I wonder what cocktail she was given to fight and recover from cancer. Perhaps something that aided her running. Reminds me of a certain bicyclist.

It's not like anyone cares about professional running anyway let alone mediocre performances. Enjoy it as a hobby.

"She may be one of the only American's ever to have competed in the prestigious and famous race in Japan."

well, my ex-wife finished 4th in the very first Osaka Women's marathon way back in 1982. she came back the next year and finished 5th. Through most of the 80's the US usually had 2 finishers in the top 10, plus a couple others.

Americans hardly went to the race at all in the 90's and 2000's and Osaka seemed to downplay the international competition anyway, only inviting a handful of foreign runners. For awhile it seemed to be just Japanese women, so perhaps they wanted locals to win for a change. Nice to see an American doing well in an Asian marathon.

1982 world bests:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_in_marathon_running

Race winner history:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osaka_International_Ladies_Marathon

For starters, you're conflating recreational running with elite-level competition: the number of people in the "open age" category doesn't tell us anything about competition among elites. Look at the relative number of men versus women in post-collegiate training groups; look at the gaps in time between top finishers at most big-city marathons. Any reasonable observer can see that there's a discrepancy in competitive depth.

I like how you tout your use of "indisputable" stats and yet show your inability to use them in any nuanced way. If 2:26-high equals 2:07-high on the men's side, then what's the equivalent male performance for a 2:19 woman? Remember, 2:19 is seven minutes faster than a time you've claimed is equivalent to a 2:07. Even taking into account the need to scale times across gender, a 2:19 women's time would be worth no less than a 2:01xx on the men's. And consider what Radcliffe's 2:15 would be worth, according to your thinking.

Luckily, though, everyone else on this thread seems to agree that Burla's performance is worth something in the 2:10-2:13 range. Again, none of this is meant to detract from her great performance, only to put it in its proper context.

sorry, to be clear, the above post is in response to "fun with stats."

Across the pond wrote:

Yawn my @$$. That WR by Radcliffe is a joke like most others.

You're the problem with our sport. Instead of celebrating a clean athlete with a great story, you knock the sport down. These people aren't weekend warriors following the Runner's World jog-a-thon plan. I would bet my house that you couldn't run a 2:26 marathon to save your life.

2:17 is a joke?

No I'm not. The Mercier calculator uses the IAAF performance rankings over many years, and yet there isn't a linear drop off. I actually did the same thing with an Excel spreadsheet to visually see it, and again there is not a linear drop off between elite men and women- nevermind how it exponentially grows as you get into recreational level running. It is not an appropriate means to use a linear value of comparison between two populations when one of them doesn't follow a normal distribution.

Why should I spoon feed you, when you can do it yourself? You can either create your own spread sheet and rank-order and average several yrs of data, or take the IAAF all time performance rankings and see what matches up to 2:19. I see 2:03:12 as the male equivalent.

Objective statistics trumps subjective opinion.

Yes 2:26:53 is a great time for her and really almost all American females. However if Shalane had run that time everyone would be telling her to retire. Some people are hoping for the next Samuelson or Kastor to bring back another Olympic marathon medal and there was hope for Goucher and Flanagan and Linden but it didn't happen. A 2:26 for a 34 year old is great but just not going to get that kind of hype.

Serena Burla is a world class athlete and a fine and decent human being, mother, and coach of children introducing them to our sport. She has some notable places and wins including a national championship. Why people need to detract or belittle accomplishments most of us can not even dream of is beyond me. To besmirch someone as lovely as her is base and unkind.