Next Sunday's Austin Marathon and Hitting the Wall

Before Sunday I thought it would be interesting to look at last year's results to see how many runners hit the wall.

When you run a marathon, you probably know that a consistent pace is the best way to run. It's easier said than done, especially when you're talking about 26.2 miles.

So I thought it would be interesting to see how many people are able to keep a consistent pace.

From the 2004 Austin Marathon race results, I put everyone's split times through my program and recorded their split time for the first 10K and for their last 2.7 miles. I then grouped the runners by how much their pace changed.

For example, there were 1242 runners who did the last 2.7 miles 1 to 2 minutes slower than their pace for the first 10K (6.2 mi). I defined positive minutes to indicate that the runners ran the last leg slower. Negative numbers mean that they ran it faster.

As can be seen from the numbers, very few people actually ran the last leg more than 1 minute per mile faster than the first leg. However, there were more than 800 who hit the wall and ran the last leg over 3 minutes per mile slower than the first 10K. But the majority of the runners were able to avoid the wall and keep their pace within a minute or two of their starting pace. That's very impressive. Good luck to all who run this Sunday.

Minutes/mile changes

in pace between first

10K and last 2.7 miles  Number Of Runners

----------------------  ------------------

      -3:59 to -3:00       2

      -2:59 to -2:00      13

      -1:59 to -1:00      91

       -0:59 to 0:59    1844

        1:00 to 1:59    1242

        2:00 to 2:59     812

        3:00 to 3:59     443

        4:00 to 4:59     187

        5:00 to 5:59     113

        6:00 to 6:59      45

        7:00 to 7:59      26

        8:00 to 8:59      14

        9:00 to 9:59       4

      10:00 to 10:59       1

      11:00 to 11:59       5

      13:00 to 13:59       1

      25:00 to 25:59       1

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Note: Negative time ranges signify that the runners

finished their last 2.7 miles that many mintues/mile

faster than their first 10K.