Posted: January 12, 2006

Athletics: Do women really run faster times in mixed races than in women-only races?

Liz Maguire at the 2005 New York City Marathon

The recent announcement by the London Marathon that male pacers will be used in the early start for the elite women is rather disappointing. After all, it was the London Marathon that pioneered and championed the early start for the elite women to promote women-only competition. Since the London Marathon already has the fastest women's times for mixed races and women-only races, one wonders why this is being done. If anything, it would seem to go against the previous London standard of supporting women-only races. I suspect that the basic reason is to produce faster times.

Do women really run faster times in mixed races than in women-only races? Compare Radcliffe's times in 2003 (mixed) and 2005 women-only) at London. Using the race time bias analysis, one can get an idea of how comparable these times are. The men's race in 2003 had an RTB of -55.8 seconds. In 2005, the men's race had an RTB of -46.5 seconds. Thus in 2005, the men ran slower against their expected times viz. 2003 by 9.3 seconds. Radcliffe ran 137 seconds faster in 2003 (2:15:24.6 vs 2:17:42), i.e., the advantage of being in a mixed race would appear to be about two minutes.

To get a bigger sample, look at the difference in the women's RTB between 2003 and 2005. In 2003, it was -104.6 seconds; in 2005 it was -25.6 seconds. In other words, the average woman in the elite women's race ran 79 seconds faster with male pacers, of which 9 seconds can be accounted for by the difference in the men's RTB. In other words, the advantage is on the order of 70 seconds over the marathon distance, at least based on this one case.

Now consider the New York City Marathon which had an early elite women start in 2004 and 2005. For the period 1979-2003, the average men's RTB was 31.6 seconds and the average women's RTB was 35.6 seconds, i.e., they were pretty much the same. For 2004-2005, the average men's RTB was +124.7 seconds while the average women's RTB was +92.3 seconds, i.e., the women actually ran relatively faster without male pacing, by 38 seconds. In 2004, the women's RTB was 5.5 seconds slower than the men's (or 1.5 seconds slower considering the long-term difference between men and women at New York) while in 2005, the women's RTB was 70.4 seconds faster (again, adjusts to 74.4 seconds faster considering the long-term difference).

Averaging these three examples, London (70 seconds slower in women-only), New York 2004 (2 seconds slower), and New York 2005 (74 seconds faster) one obtains a difference of about one second faster in women-only races. This difference is clearly not significant.

The bottom line is that if a runner believes she will run slower in a women-only field, then she will run slower. But, as the 2005 New York City Marathon demonstrates, if the women forget about the pacing and simply focus on their race, there really is no difference and there may even be a time advantage in a women-only race.

However, the important issue is not how fast (or slow) women run in women-only races. The real issue is that the move to women-only road records is a necessary step for the sport of road racing. Just as course certification and validation were important steps to establish the legitimacy of road racing in the eyes of the IAAF and USATF, so is the move to women-only records. One can only hope that the London Marathon will reconsider their decision and return to their principles.

As an end-note, the ARRS will drop the mixed race world road record category and consider only marks made in women-only races as legitimate world road records, as of 01 Jan 2007.

Source: Ken Young, The Analytical Distance Runner
ARRS.net

About the ARRS:
The Analytical Distance Runner is the newsletter for the Association of Road Racing Statisticians with a focus on races, 3000m and longer, including road, track, and crosscountry events. Male runners who have achieved a sub-30:00 time for 10K road or the equivalent, and female runners who have achieved a sub-35:00 time for 10K road or the equivalent are followed. These criteria include virtually all world and national class open runners and many top masters runners.
The ARRS has a website at ARRS.net. This newsletter serves to highlite many of the changes to the ARRS website. ARRS members may submit brief articles of current interest for possible inclusion in the newsletter.

Subscribe to the Runner's Web Weekly Digest