How Fast is the Aramco Houston Half Marathon Course?
Just how fast is the Aramco Houston Half Marathon course that 24-year-old Ryan Hall of Mammoth Lakes, California set the U.S. record on?
Honestly, I really don't think that you can say how fast the course is. But if you can, let's face it, Houston has been fast long before Ryan Hall. When I interviewed John Wellerding and Mark Finucane for my December 2006 story on the 1984 Houston-Tenneco Marathon, they both said they came to Houston seeking a U.S. Olympic Trials marathon qualifying time.
If you say Houston is fast, is Arizona's P.F. Chang's even faster because Haile Gebrselassie ran 58:55 on it in January 2006?
All you can really do is measure the field on the course.
Using the finishers data from Runner Triathlete News (2002), the Chevron Houston Marathon web site (2003-2006) and the first post-race file available to the media (in 2007), the average finishing time of Aramco Houston Half Marathon participants over the years has actually increased from 2:11:57 to 2:25:30.
The median time, which represents the time where there were an equal number of finishers above and below the person who had that time, steadily increased through to 2006, but dramatically dropped in 2007. Factoring out the 31 finishers that posted official times of more than four (4) hours, it only moved the median time down to 2:15:15. (The mean time also dipped to 2:25:08.)
2002 - 2,649 finishers - 2:11:57 mean - 2:09:34 median - 13 times over 4 hours
2003 - 3,990 finishers - 2:16:18 mean - 2:12:52 median - 3 times over 4 hours
2004 - 5,207 finishers - 2:17:35 mean - 2:13:34 median - 7 times over 4 hours
2005 - 6,732 finishers - 2:21:35 mean - 2:19:58 median - 3 times over 4 hours
2006 - 7,351 finishers - 2:25:18 mean - 2:21:10 median - 19 times over 4 hours
*2007 - 6,954 finishers - 2:25:30 mean - 2:15:22 median - 31 times over 4 hours.
Therefore, one could make a case that the men's and women's U.S. half marathon championship fields pulled the field through the first half of finishers a bit faster than the last two years.
But that doesn't make "a course itself" faster, does it?
Remember what two-time Chevron Houston Marathon winner David Cheriuyot said in his June 6, 2007 Runner's World interview: "Instead of the smaller, I would like to run a bigger city marathon - in fact, something like Chicago where I have a chance to get my time down lower. I know, if given the chance, I can run just as well as Limo and Rodgers on a course like Chicago. So a chance to run in the big marathons are what I want."
I noticed two things here:
1.) Cheriuyot's reference of "the smaller", which would be Houston, Baltimore and Ottawa - the three primary ones that he's run.
2.) His reference about getting his time down lower at Chicago. How would he do that? By being pushed by faster, more elite-level runners than he is.
I've not run Chicago. Is its marathon course more flat than Houston? Would that contribute alone or would the more elite-level class do so?
Interestingly enough, the mean time of the 2006 Koala Health & Wellness Centers / Luke's Locker Houston Half Marathon? 2:07:15.8. So does that make it a faster course? The median time was 2:06:01.8.
Maybe. Maybe not. Koala / Luke's Locker had 2,315 finishers. But if you looked at the first 2,315 finishers of the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, the mean time was 1:52:00.
But the January event had its course open longer, which sucked the mean times downwards for all finishers.
* The initial data file had 6,989 finishing times and 35 of them had calculated chip times of 8 to 12 hours. Therefore, I excluded them from the calculation.
Honestly, I really don't think that you can say how fast the course is. But if you can, let's face it, Houston has been fast long before Ryan Hall. When I interviewed John Wellerding and Mark Finucane for my December 2006 story on the 1984 Houston-Tenneco Marathon, they both said they came to Houston seeking a U.S. Olympic Trials marathon qualifying time.
If you say Houston is fast, is Arizona's P.F. Chang's even faster because Haile Gebrselassie ran 58:55 on it in January 2006?
All you can really do is measure the field on the course.
Using the finishers data from Runner Triathlete News (2002), the Chevron Houston Marathon web site (2003-2006) and the first post-race file available to the media (in 2007), the average finishing time of Aramco Houston Half Marathon participants over the years has actually increased from 2:11:57 to 2:25:30.
The median time, which represents the time where there were an equal number of finishers above and below the person who had that time, steadily increased through to 2006, but dramatically dropped in 2007. Factoring out the 31 finishers that posted official times of more than four (4) hours, it only moved the median time down to 2:15:15. (The mean time also dipped to 2:25:08.)
2002 - 2,649 finishers - 2:11:57 mean - 2:09:34 median - 13 times over 4 hours
2003 - 3,990 finishers - 2:16:18 mean - 2:12:52 median - 3 times over 4 hours
2004 - 5,207 finishers - 2:17:35 mean - 2:13:34 median - 7 times over 4 hours
2005 - 6,732 finishers - 2:21:35 mean - 2:19:58 median - 3 times over 4 hours
2006 - 7,351 finishers - 2:25:18 mean - 2:21:10 median - 19 times over 4 hours
*2007 - 6,954 finishers - 2:25:30 mean - 2:15:22 median - 31 times over 4 hours.
Therefore, one could make a case that the men's and women's U.S. half marathon championship fields pulled the field through the first half of finishers a bit faster than the last two years.
But that doesn't make "a course itself" faster, does it?
Remember what two-time Chevron Houston Marathon winner David Cheriuyot said in his June 6, 2007 Runner's World interview: "Instead of the smaller, I would like to run a bigger city marathon - in fact, something like Chicago where I have a chance to get my time down lower. I know, if given the chance, I can run just as well as Limo and Rodgers on a course like Chicago. So a chance to run in the big marathons are what I want."
I noticed two things here:
1.) Cheriuyot's reference of "the smaller", which would be Houston, Baltimore and Ottawa - the three primary ones that he's run.
2.) His reference about getting his time down lower at Chicago. How would he do that? By being pushed by faster, more elite-level runners than he is.
I've not run Chicago. Is its marathon course more flat than Houston? Would that contribute alone or would the more elite-level class do so?
Interestingly enough, the mean time of the 2006 Koala Health & Wellness Centers / Luke's Locker Houston Half Marathon? 2:07:15.8. So does that make it a faster course? The median time was 2:06:01.8.
Maybe. Maybe not. Koala / Luke's Locker had 2,315 finishers. But if you looked at the first 2,315 finishers of the Aramco Houston Half Marathon, the mean time was 1:52:00.
But the January event had its course open longer, which sucked the mean times downwards for all finishers.
* The initial data file had 6,989 finishing times and 35 of them had calculated chip times of 8 to 12 hours. Therefore, I excluded them from the calculation.
posted by WalkSports.com | 12:40 AM
3 Comments:
Do you really think the median finish time is the best measure of how fast a course is? Compare apples to apples by looking at race timed for runner that you know is truly running for time on several course. I have only run the Koala Luke's Half, so I have no data, but traveling the rolling hills of Allen Parkway over three loops really knocks the wind out of your sails. Watching all of those half-marathoners fly down Montrose as I chug up to the nine mile mark of the marathon makes it look pretty fast- enough to make me think, "Gee, I really shoudl run a half someday."
Ask Elf, she's a couple of fast courses, I think.
Anna,
Actually, I don't know.
That's why I want to throw it out here for discussion.
Really I think in any scenario it is subjective, which always leaves a LOT of room for debate.
Would times be the same if the temperatures were different?
I really think there are too many variables in road racing.
I'm getting raked over the coals - which is OK - just because I'm not buying into the theory that because Hall ran his time that the course all of a sudden becomes "fast".
If there was a true belief that it was "fast" before (and that a record might have been possible) the course would have been - and I don't remember the proper word choice - pre-judged (or pre-certified) for record quality.
It wasn't. Bob Barnhill did the check of Tom McBrayer's certification work, which is top notch, of course, using another method of measurement (read this on the Certifier's message forum) a week after the event to make sure it met all the proper criteria. There was a chance, until that was done, that the record would not have been approved come this December at the USATF national meeting.
Jon
Jon,
In order to have a record setting course, you need to have two things: 1) a reasonably flat course, and 2) lots and lots of prize money (or, alternatively, host a championship of some kind) to attract the elite runners who are actually capable of running a record time.
Boston used to be the race that the elites targeted, because it was Boston. Lately, though, the 2:06 guys have gone to London, Berlin, and Chicago. Why? Because you can't run 2:06 in Boston (or probably even New York)--it's too hilly, and the weather is too unpredictable. They're starting to go back because of the World Marathon Majors, but the fastest of the fast still seem to go to the other races.
I would say that Houston course-wise is fairly similar to Chicago--maybe a little hillier, but really, compared to Boston or New York or many, many other courses, the hills here are nothing to speak of.
The half-marathon course was USATF certified in advance. But I'm not sure that anyone really expected Ryan Hall to go that fast, outside of Ryan, Sarah, and Terrance Mahon. That record had stood for 25 years, and I thought if anyone would break it, it would be Abdi, but he wasn't there.
Hall's performance was arguably the best performance by a distance runner in US history, and that couldn't have happened if the course weren't fast. I haven't run the full marathon on the new course (have done the half a few times), but I've run probably every stretch of road on it, and it's all pretty flat. If Tergat or Geb showed up to run here for some reason, I would bet they'd lay down a really fast time.
I glanced at Marathonguide.com reviews of the race. Lots of positive comments, and many people mentioned that it was a fast course or that they BQ'd. Of course it didn't just become a fast course when Hall set the record--it has always been fast, as many of the reviews there mentioned. But as I posted earlier, Hall's race "proved" it to a degree. It was the talk of the running world in the US for quite a while, and allowed for some great PR for our races.
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