Pace and speed figures

[Furious Pete]

I just watched the great women\'s 10,000 meter race in the olympics where the \"unbeatable\" world record was beaten with 14 seconds, in a race where many of those behind took off about 10 seconds of their previously best results. The reason is that this race was ran \"all out\" from the beginning, compared to the normal scenario where the best runners wait a lot longer before they find their top gear. (summary: http://www.runnersworld.com/olympics/womens-10000-almaz-ayana-wins-in-a-world-record)

Now, imagine there was another 10,000 women race immeadetly after with just as accomplished runners going into it, or the mens race even, and this turned out to be a more normal ran race, maybe even a \"crawl\". How could one possibly justify using one track variant for making these two races? (Is this really what Ragozin do??) Would you really have a race where everyone in the 1st heat \"exploded\" into speed figures of historical proportions and everyone ran a new top with plenty of points, or would you rather maybe give them just some credit for starting running early but not go crazy relative to earlier achievements? (where you give Almaz Ayana credit for running maybe 4 or 5 or 6 seconds better than her previous best going into it, and not 14 seconds better than the best performance of all time). Remember, what you really want those figures to tell you is all about the next time, when Almaz Ayana or maybe even more illustratory one of those that ran big \"new tops\" while finishing behind Ayana, will race against that winner of that other imaginary heat. What would their real chances to win be? I know I would play against if the odds was reflective of those big figures, and that\'s not because of the possibility of a \"bounce\".

What do you guys think?

[TGJB]

That\'s the reason we use \"S. Pace\" and \"H. Pace\" designations\".

[richiebee]

Even though running is something I would only choose to do when being chased,
and even though Jimbo\'s offshore people would probably give me any Olympic
action I wanted (I was tempted to place a bet with them on the cancelled jump
race Wednesday), I can not see why we need to draw an extended metaphor to
Olympic track athletes on a weekend when there are ample equine handicapping
puzzles, especially in the Second City, where we can apply our vast collective
knowledge of pace, speed and performance figures (but not necessarily class).

This is yet another attempt to apply Thorology and Thorologic thinking to a
field for which they were not created, lest we forget that Fairmount, on his
western swing, found himself assigning TG #s to some of the local young women.