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> One athlete broke the women's world record Not so. She broke a record for a female-only-pacer marathon time. The women's world record was much, much faster.
by PaulDavisThe1st 6mo ago
> One athlete broke the women's world record
Not so. She broke a record for a female-only-pacer marathon time. The women's world record was much, much faster.
- ekr____ 6mo agoTo add some color here: It is very helpful to have someone pace you so that you can run an ideal pace without worrying about whether you are running the right speed. However, the rules require that pacers start with you [0], which means that by definition if you are running faster than anyone has ever gone before you have to run some of the race alone. However, because marathon are often mixed gender and the best male runners are significantly faster than the best female runners, it is possible for a woman to be paced from the gun to the tape by a male runner. For this reason, there are separate records for the women's marathon for women's only events. [0] This is one of the things that made Kipchoge's original sub 2 result not record-eligible.
- ungreased0675 6mo agoHaving a pacer start with you seems to defeat the purpose? I’d prefer someone fresh and full of energy to jump in halfway to carry me through the end.
- dmurray 6mo agoI stand corrected, but I don't think this changes my point at all. She broke the thing that the IAAF have gone back and forth on calling "the world record". It's the relevant record for this event - there was no more chance of her beating the man-paced record than of beating the men's record or the Le Mans lap record.
- NooneAtAll3 6mo agowhat does female-only-pacer even mean?
- PaulDavisThe1st 6mo agoIt is common in "big" marathons for the fastest runners to have pacers with them who help establish and keep a pace. They could be male or female, but the fastest marathon runners are generally male, so they tend to be male. "Female-only-pacer" means that only female pacers are used.