LA Marathon race format a winner



E

Eno

Guest
Last night, I watched the recorded coverage of the Los
Angeles marathon. This year, the race featured a challenge
prize of $50K for the runner who crossed the finish line
first. The twist? The women got a 20:30 head start.
Initially, I looked upon this with skepticism, but in the
end, this made for a very exciting race to watch. The
women's winner ran an exceptional and smart race, and the
men's winner wilted in the heat around mile 20-21 and
actually started losing time to the lady's winner. Very
interesting race.

--
eNo "Why am I here?"
 
>LA Marathon race format a winner

Needs some refinement, however. They calculated the ladies'
"head start" of
20:37 (or whatever it was) based on the average mens-womens
differential for the previous 18 years at LA. This is
somewhat bogus, as the male-female differential has
declined substantially in recent years. For one thing,
as the overall times get lower, the differential
inherently shrinks. For another, women's formal
marathonning was still in its relative infancy in 1985.
Instead of using these unfair "18-year average" figures,
they should use the last (most recent) differential, or
maybe the last 2 or 3 races at most. After all, the mens
and womens WRs for 26.2 miles are now only about 10 -11
minutes apart, not
20:1.
 
"TopCounsel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> >LA Marathon race format a winner
>
> Needs some refinement, however. They calculated the
> ladies' "head start"
of
> 20:37 (or whatever it was) based on the average mens-
> womens differential
for
> the previous 18 years at LA. This is somewhat bogus, as
> the male-female differential has declined substantially in
> recent years. For one thing,
as the
> overall times get lower, the differential inherently
> shrinks. For
another,
> women's formal marathonning was still in its relative
> infancy in 1985.
Instead
> of using these unfair "18-year average" figures, they
> should use the last
(most
> recent) differential, or maybe the last 2 or 3 races at
> most. After all,
the
> mens and womens WRs for 26.2 miles are now only about 10
> -11 minutes
apart, not
> 20:37.

Hmm. Good point. I suppose this year will drag the
handicap down: 2:30 for the woman, 2:13 for the man, for
a differential of ~ 17 minutes. I wouldn't quite go back
to the previous 2-3 years, but maybe something in the
range of 7-10. Note, however, that if the man had run in
the 2:09-2:10 range, a very reasonable time, he would
have caught her, so the 18 year average still yielded a
reasonable handicap. Note also that discussions about
current best world times, etc., are mostly irrelevant, as
those records are usually obtained in much faster courses
than Los Angeles.

All this aside, it made for an exciting conclusion. Rather
than "and so-and-so pulls ahead and wins by a block," once
the man's leader pulled ahead, he still had incentive to go
even faster and the race wasn't over per say.

--
ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º
eNo
"If you can't go fast, go long."
ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º
 
"TopCounsel" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> >LA Marathon race format a winner
>
> Needs some refinement, however. They calculated the
> ladies' "head start"
of
> 20:37 (or whatever it was) based on the average mens-
> womens differential
for
> the previous 18 years at LA. This is somewhat bogus, as
> the male-female differential has declined substantially in
> recent years. For one thing,
as the
> overall times get lower, the differential inherently
> shrinks. For
another,
> women's formal marathonning was still in its relative
> infancy in 1985.
Instead
> of using these unfair "18-year average" figures, they
> should use the last
(most
> recent) differential, or maybe the last 2 or 3 races at
> most. After all,
the
> mens and womens WRs for 26.2 miles are now only about 10
> -11 minutes
apart, not
> 20:37.

Hmm. Good point. I suppose this year will drag the
handicap down: 2:30 for the woman, 2:13 for the man, for
a differential of ~ 17 minutes. I wouldn't quite go back
to the previous 2-3 years, but maybe something in the
range of 7-10. Note, however, that if the man had run in
the 2:09-2:10 range, a very reasonable time, he would
have caught her, so the 18 year average still yielded a
reasonable handicap. Note also that discussions about
current best world times, etc., are mostly irrelevant, as
those records are usually obtained in much faster courses
than Los Angeles.

All this aside, it made for an exciting conclusion. Rather
than "and so-and-so pulls ahead and wins by a block," once
the man's leader pulled ahead, he still had incentive to go
even faster and the race wasn't over per say.

--
ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º
eNo
"If you can't go fast, go long."
ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º
 
Isn't this discrimination, giving perference based on
gender. What's next starting the Kenyans ten minutes back of
the white runners?

eNo <[email protected]> wrote:

> Last night, I watched the recorded coverage of the Los
> Angeles marathon. This year, the race featured a challenge
> prize of $50K for the runner who crossed the finish line
> first. The twist? The women got a 20:30 head start.
> Initially, I looked upon this with skepticism, but in the
> end, this made for a very exciting race to watch. The
> women's winner ran an exceptional and smart race, and the
> men's winner wilted in the heat around mile 20-21 and
> actually started losing time to the lady's winner. Very
> interesting race.
 
"Bumper" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:1gaeg3i.1wr8h8k18btlb0N%[email protected]...
> Isn't this discrimination, giving perference based on
> gender. What's next starting the Kenyans ten minutes back
> of the white runners?

This was my initial reaction as well. However, a few seconds
of consideration convinced me otherwise:

1) Handicapping is commonplace in golf. No one cries
discrimination there.

2) The men *did* have a realistic chance to over-take the
women and win the challenge, so no one discriminated them
out of $50K.

3) The women couldn't use men to pace themselves, so they
lost an edge there.

4) The men were in the chase position, which normally is the
preferable position in a race, i.e., better be the fox,
not the rabbit.

In the end, no one is fooled. The lead man was still 17
seconds faster than the best woman, and he still got the
same prize he normally would have gotten sans the handicap.
Add it all up, and it's hard to argue for discrimination.

--
eNo "Why am I here?"
 
"eNo" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> lead man was still 17 seconds faster than

Err... That should be 17 minutes ;).

--
ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º
eNo
"If you can't go fast, go long."
ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º°`°º¤ø¤º°`°º¤ø,,,,ø¤º
 
eNo <[email protected]> wrote:

> "Bumper" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:1gaeg3i.1wr8h8k18btlb0N%[email protected]...
> > Isn't this discrimination, giving perference based on
> > gender. What's next starting the Kenyans ten minutes
> > back of the white runners?
>
> This was my initial reaction as well. However, a few
> seconds of consideration convinced me otherwise:
>
> 1) Handicapping is commonplace in golf. No one cries
> discrimination there.

There is no handicapping in professional golf and with very
few exceptions professional male and female golfers do not
comptete in the same tourneys.
>
> 2) The men *did* have a realistic chance to over-take the
> women and win the challenge, so no one discriminated
> them out of $50K.

Realism is everybody starts at the same time and place and
may the best person win, if Ann Trason can be the overall
winner of an ultra enough said.
>
> 3) The women couldn't use men to pace themselves, so they
> lost an edge there.

What is the difference between the men having a rabbit
and the women having a rabbit - except the gender of the
rabbits. Would it be better if the male runners rabbit
was female.
>
> 4) The men were in the chase position, which normally is
> the preferable position in a race, i.e., better be the
> fox, not the rabbit.

You don't watch many marathons, eh? The LA marathon was won
a few years back by the rabbit when none of the male runners
wanted to stay with him.
>
> In the end, no one is fooled. The lead man was still 17
> seconds faster than the best woman, and he still got the
> same prize he normally would have gotten sans the
> handicap. Add it all up, and it's hard to argue for
> discrimination.

Running a marathon is susposed to be a footrace, not an
episode of Survivor. If one party gets perference over
another then is is discrimination. If it walks like a duck
and it quacks like a duck it is a duck.

The truth is this whole scheme is probably the invention of
and for television, who do not want to have to broadcast and
additional twenty to thirty minutes while they wait for the
first women to cross the line. This is just as bad as any
other requirement put on any other sport in the chase for
television dollars.

If you don't remember what coffee smells like contact
Donovan Rebbechi, he's the rec.running resident expert
on expresso!
 
On Wed, 10 Mar 2004 15:14:34 GMT, "eNo" <[email protected]> wrote:

>"Bumper" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>news:1gaeg3i.1wr8h8k18btlb0N%[email protected]...
>> Isn't this discrimination, giving perference based on
>> gender. What's next starting the Kenyans ten minutes back
>> of the white runners?
>
>This was my initial reaction as well. However, a few
>seconds of consideration convinced me otherwise:
>
>1) Handicapping is commonplace in golf. No one cries
> discrimination there.

Golf handicaps are individual, not an average of many
golfers.

--
"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the
inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents."
- H.P. Lovecraft
 
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