More on The Shamrock Sportsfest Marathon

One thing I like about the results that Lin-Mark has on last Saturday's Virginia Beach Shamrock Sportsfest Marathon is how it gives the first and second half paces. I decided to use this to see how the marathon runners were able to keep their pace between the two halves. Only 9.3% of the runners had a faster second half pace. Only 6 runners out of 1500 ran the second half more than a minute/mile faster. However, 53.1% ran the second half over 1 minute/mile slower. 46.5% of the runners were able to keep their first and second half paces within a minute/mile of each other.

I compared these stats with this year's Austin marathon. In Austin about 3% of the runners finished the second half faster and about 33% finished with both the halves within a minute/mile pace of each other. So those who ran last Saturday did well by keeping a consistent pace. However, it should be pointed out that Virginia Beach had cooler temperatures for its marathon.

Below are the detailed stats. Faster means the runner finished the second half at a faster pace. If you move your mouse over the cells, you can see the best time for that category. Also included are the first and second half paces for that time.

Change in Pace Numbers by Finish Times

Pace Change	Marathon Chip Times
	Under 3hr	3 to 4hr	4 to 5hr	Over 5hr	Total
2 to 3m faster
1 to 2m faster			4 (1%)	2 (1%)	6 (0%)
0 to 1m faster	5 (17%)	76 (14%)	43 (6%)	10 (4%)	134 (9%)
0 to 1m slower	22 (73%)	305 (56%)	214 (32%)	23 (9%)	564 (38%)
1 to 2m slower	1 (3%)	114 (21%)	207 (31%)	62 (23%)	384 (26%)
2 to 3m slower		28 (5%)	122 (18%)	59 (22%)	209 (14%)
3 to 4m slower		8 (1%)	46 (7%)	51 (19%)	105 (7%)
Over 4m slower			22 (3%)	51 (19%)	73 (5%)
Unknown	2 (7%)	10 (2%)	7 (1%)	6 (2%)	25 (2%)
Total	30	541	665	264	1500

Weather at Virginia Beach on March 19, 2005

The weather was great for a marathon. Perhaps it was a tad cool at the start. weather.com showed a temperature at Virginia Beach of 33 F at the start of the marathon. It also shows an odd jump in the temperatures from 8:00am to 9:O0am. It recorded 33F at 7:56am and 51F at 8:56am during a time when winds were calm. Norfolk had a similar but less drastic jump in temps during this time going from 37F at 6:51am, to 43F at 7:51am, and to 48F at 8:51am. Below are the temperature details.

Time	Temp F	Humid. %	Wind	Sky Condition
6:56am	33	85	calm	partly cloudy
7:56am	33	85	calm	partly cloudy
8:56am	51	50	calm	mostly cloudy
9:56am	54	43	from ESE 8mph	mostly cloudy
10:56am	56	40	from ESE 9mph	mostly cloudy
11:56am	57	36	from ESE 14mph	mostly cloudy
12:56pm	55	40	from SE 10mph	mostly cloudy
1:56pm	56	45	from ESE 13mph	cloudy