PR Progressions of top 10K guys in history (link to plot is given)

Your point?

From your plot, Farah, Koech, and Tergat all had odd 5k progressions.

interesting

Sed it all wrote:

Your point?

I’m not really trying to make a point, the data has not been manipulated in any way (aside from laziness and/or sloppiness). I was just curious in light of Galen Rupp’s recent AR how his career has compared against others on the all-time list. I forgot to say that the list of athletes was taken from Wikipedia’s entry on the fastest 10,000 meter runners in the world, so if you’re wondering why I stopped at 25 athletes, that’s your answer.

What I learned:

-Rupp and Farah have more data points than the other athletes and made progress more slowly than most of them.

-One thing that surprises me is how many curves seem fairly linear (for instance, look at Hissou’s progression or Rupp’s progression to the age of 25 (ignoring his last data point))

–I was expecting curves that looked more like exponentials. Haile G is really the one that makes the strongest case for an exponential. Farah’s has a bit of curvature but it doesn't look like it has flattened out. There must be something psychological about pushing past the point of diminishing returns. From that point of view, Haile G is the biggest badass on the list, I knew I liked that guy.

-I had forgotten how old Paul Tergat was when he started running competitively; he is a few years older than Haile G and I think he basically began running in a different era from the rest of them.

-Kemboi wins the award for being the youngest fastest person on the list

-Koech is an outlier in terms of age, but the slope of his progression matches the younger guys reasonably well. That seems impressive to me.

-The fastest 18 year olds were Moses Masai and S Kipketer, and their rates of improvement are the lowest of anyone else on the list (perhaps if we could see their progression at even younger ages…).

Finally, proof that Mo is not on PEDs!

nice work - interesting

looks like the east africans throw everything they've got into racing at age 18, hit their best at 22 and that is that.

Geb and Bekele were able to keep improving for some reason - freaks of nature and some luck, no doubt.

Rupp is clearly on a different trajectory - allowed by his wealth, college career and nike contract.

This is really the Rupp experiment - I bet this is how Al Sal looks at it. Take a world class talent and develop him over time. don't rush things. Maybe he can set world records at age 30 and stay uninjured.

That's clearly going to be the mary cain path too - long and slow improvements.

The Salty Splatoon wrote:

interesting

Thanks

agip wrote:

nice work - interesting

looks like the east africans throw everything they've got into racing at age 18, hit their best at 22 and that is that.

Geb and Bekele were able to keep improving for some reason - freaks of nature and some luck, no doubt.

Rupp is clearly on a different trajectory - allowed by his wealth, college career and nike contract.

This is really the Rupp experiment - I bet this is how Al Sal looks at it. Take a world class talent and develop him over time. don't rush things. Maybe he can set world records at age 30 and stay uninjured.

That's clearly going to be the mary cain path too - long and slow improvements.

Many of the Africans stop PRing by their mid 20s,, but they often run close to their prs. Maybe the early years are focused on getting faster and the later years focused on winning races? Unless they think they have a real shot at the WR (Geb&Bekele)?

If 10k = 5k x 2.088, then you should have included Komen as a top 10k guy for his equivalent 26:24.

The IAAF website is incomplete and contains errors. If you use alltime-athletics.com you can get a progression of all performances.

Koech is 29?

Ow my head.

Bad Wigins wrote:

If 10k = 5k x 2.088, then you should have included Komen as a top 10k guy for his equivalent 26:24.

The IAAF website is incomplete and contains errors. If you use alltime-athletics.com you can get a progression of all performances.

Agreed about Komen being conspicuous by his absence. Reckon I should check out athletics.com 'cause I know IAAF isn't all inclusive and I don't think I'm up for paying for tilostopaja.

p.s. I find Ventolin's equivalent times database really interesting. It makes the implicit claim that the track records from 800m - 10000m are all somewhat to very soft compared to the sprint records. My initial response was "yeah, right" but the more I think about it, the more I think he has a point. Happy to discuss why I think he has a point if anyone's interested.

Bad Wigins wrote:

If 10k = 5k x 2.088, then you should have included Komen as a top 10k guy for his equivalent 26:24.

The IAAF website is incomplete and contains errors. If you use alltime-athletics.com you can get a progression of all performances.

Yeah, Komen wasn't the fastest 10k runner and I only looked at those guys. Then I decided to consider their 5k and 10k times to examine their development because the 10k isn't run as often. I think there's a difference between the 5k-10k guys and the 1mile-3k-5k guys. El Guerrouj ran one of the fastest 5ks as well (he's 17th fastest with a 12:50 so he'd probably make the cut). Sorry Hicham. Maybe I'll put together the 5k guys sometime. Or you could do it, I'll post the data if you want.

alltime-athletics.com has all of the fastest times, but it isn't great for showing the progressions. It only goes down to 13:30 in the 5k and 28:30 in the 10k, so there are a lot of the early-career times that would have been omitted.

Where is Ventolin's equivalent times database?

https://2008olympictrialsakatommyleonard.shutterfly.com/filecabinet

find

"Ventolin worksheet"

dkny64 wrote:p.s. I find Ventolin's equivalent times database really interesting. It makes the implicit claim that the track records from 800m - 10000m are all somewhat to very soft compared to the sprint records. My initial response was "yeah, right" but the more I think about it, the more I think he has a point. Happy to discuss why I think he has a point if anyone's interested.

that was an incidental finding which I was not really expecting at outset

however, you must convert 100 times to "basic", with bolt's 9.58wr = ~ 9.63 because of wind

his 19.19 into a wind is strongest performance of all-time, worth ~ 19.16 basic, which is not surprising as he is primarily a 200 guy

interesting comparisons :

- mj's 43.18 is virtually same strength as his legendary 19.32 ( 43.18 = 19.34 ), meaning he was as good at 400 as 200 & not inferior

- warriner's 43.45 is just as good as rudy's 1'40.91wr !!!

in terms of 100 times, the various 400 - 10k wrs :

43.18 = 9.67

1'40.91 = 9.73

2'11.96 = 9.91

3'26.00 = 9.72

4'44.79 = 9.85

7'20.67 = 9.82

12'37.35 = 9.78

26'17.53 = 9.84

worth remembering though that 100 times have been revolutionised in last few years with powell/bolt/tyson/blake

upto '05, the wr was mo's 9.79 ( set in '99 )

the wrs at '99 :

1'41.11 = 9.76

3'26.00 = 9.72

12'39.36 = 9.82

26'22.75 = 9.90

the 100wr was significantly weaker than 1500wr & lesser extent to 800wr back then

bare numbers tell little of the story

( as mo couda gone 9.6-mid/high in '01 if his knee had held up in edmonton, kip couda gone 1'40-mid if he hadn't been dragged thru in a suicidal 23.0/48.3 in his zurich 1'41.24, hicham couda gone 3'25-mid as he was too slow to bell ( 53.2 finish ! ), komen ran a 13'02 just 44 hours before the 3k & on tired legs got dragged thru in a suicidal 57-high, etc )

but the distance records ( 1500 & 800 ) were stronger on paper than 100m until just past few years when we've had this explosion in 100m times