Ryan Hall's Blog, page 203

November 6, 2016

Top 20 Finishers at the 2016 New York City Marathon

Mary Keitany approaches the finish line en route to her third straight New York City Marathon victory on Sunday. Photo: Brian Metzler

Here are the top 20 men and women finishers from the 2016 New York City Marathon.

Men

1. Ghirman Ghebreslassie (Eritrea) 2:07:51

2. Lucas Rotich (Kenya) 2:08:53

3. Abdi Abdirahman (U.S.) 2:11:23

4. Hiroyuki Yamamoto (Japan) 2:11:49

5. Shadrack Biwott (U.S.) 2:12:01

6. Tadesse Yae Dabi (Ethiopia) 2:13:06

7. Moses Kipsiro (Uganda) 2:14:18

8. Tyler Pennel (U.S.) 2:15:09

9. Ben Payne (U.S.) 2:15:46

10. Patrick Smyth (U.S.) 2:16:34

11. Craig Leon (U.S.) 2:17:14

12. Musa Babo Ido (Ethiopia) 2:17:57

13. Christo Landry (U.S.) 2:19:14

14. Brendan Martin (U.S.) 2:19:34

15. Senbeto Geneti Guteta (Ethiopia) 2:20:01

16. Mariano Mastromarino (Argentina) 2:20:08

17. Matthew Llano (U.S.) 2:20:15

18. Werkuneh Seyoum Aboye (Ethiopia) 2:20:54

19. Tim Ritchie (U.S.) 2:21:09

20. Harbert Okuti (Uganda) 2:21:27

Women

1. Mary Keitany (Kenya) 2:24:26

2. Sally Kipyego (Kenya) 2:28:01

3. Molly Huddle (U.S.) 2:28:13

4. Joyce Chepkirui (Kenya) 2:29:08

5. Diane Nukuri (Burundi) 2:33:04

6. Aselefech Mergia (Ethiopia) 2:33:28

7. Lanni Merchant (Canada) 2:33:50

8. Neely Gracey (U.S.) 2:34:55

9. Sara Hall (U.S.) 2:36:12

10. Ayantu Dakebo Hailemaryam (Ethiopia) 2:37:07

11. Esther Atkins (U.S.) 2:37:11

12. Dot McMahan (U.S.) 2:38:46

13. Kelly Arias (Columbia) 2:39:14

14. Gwen Jorgensen (U.S.) 2:41:01

15. Laura Manninen (Finland) 2:41:08

16. Kim Conley (U.S.) 2:41:38

17. Emma Nording (Sweden) 2:45:22

18. Hilary Dionne (U.S.) 2:45:31

19. Janet Bawcom (U.S.) 2:48:13

20. Dawn Grunagle (U.S.) 2:49:37

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Published on November 06, 2016 09:39

Inside the Wheelchair Races at the NYC Marathon

An hour before the elite women cross the starting line for their 26.2-mile journey around the five boroughs, an even speedier group—in fact, the fastest competitors in the race—will begin their division of the TCS New York City Marathon.

They’re the elite push rim wheelchair athletes, and while they’ve achieved more publicity and respect in recent years, especially thanks to the New York Road Runners support via appearance fees and larger prize purses as well as the inauguration of a wheelchair World Marathon Majors series competition, they remain something of a footnote in the coverage of the race.

That’s somewhat odd, since unlike the elite runners, who seem to be a pack of relatively faceless Africans who rotate over the course of a few years, the pro wheelers have distinct, and often humorous, personalities, and remain in the sport for a longer time, enough that they should be able to build up a following among fans of the sport.

Four time NYCM winner Kurt Fearnley is 35, and Ernst van Dyk is the Peyton Manning of his sport, still going strong at 43.

“We have the privilege of having an extended career,” said van Dyk. “If you look at why runners retire it’s usually because either their Achilles or their knee or their hip goes. We’re already in chairs. So none of that’s going to go. We have shoulder problems, wrist problems, elbow problems, but I think because there’s no impact—we don’t carry our own weight. We don’t pound it onto the road the whole time.”

Also, most elite wheelers don’t hit their marathon potential until relatively late in life, since theirs is a more technical sport than running. “It takes such a long time to get to our level,” Fearnley said. “You don’t see many people before their 30s reaching the pinnacle of marathons. You just don’t. So once you’re there, it’s just a matter of maintaining a certain level of strength and skill with the chair.”

“It takes a lot of years to find the right position, to find the right technique, and then to build up your endurance to do a marathon and sprint the last 400 meters on the track,” added van Dyk. “It’s a lot of things that needs to go right in an athlete’s career to reach that point of achievement.”

“Although our guys hang on, there’s a price that we’ll have to pay for it,” said Fearnley. “I can’t see myself lasting too many more years at this level because it is taxing.”

Although Fearnley (five NYCM wins, including a CR 1:29:22 in 2006) and van Dyk (two wins, including last year’s one-second victory) have had success over the course van Dyk compared to a 12-round heavyweight fight, on Sunday they’ll have to contend with a racer who has been unbeatable this year, Switzerland’s Marcel Dubbed the “Silver Bullet” for his speed as well as his chromed racing helmet, Hug has won every Major this year as well as the Rio Paralympics gold in the marathon, so this is the last chance for the rest of the men to break his stranglehold on the sport.

“We need him to lose a race,” said Fearnley. “He’s racing amazing. We haven’t had a guy win more than one race in a year for four years, and now he’s won what, five? He’s hitting his pace, and when you get momentum like that, sometimes you’ve just got to ride it out.”

“He’s got the ability to do a 400 meter up to the marathon at the same speed,” added van Dyk.

“I would have said hills were his weakness, last year we were able to break him on the bridges, but this spring in Boston he climbed so well,” said Fearnley. “He’s maturing and improving his all around capabilities,” van Dyk continued. Every race he’s won this year has been in the sprint, so he’s got a really good kick and that’s the weakness we have improve on. To beat him we have to be better in the sprint. A lot of that is finding the right time and place to go, and a lot of that is experience, that’s why it takes so long to master. The last three times I was second here I started my sprint too soon, and I’m very experienced. Last year I got it right and I won. It’s a very fine balance knowing when to go, especially with this finish being what it is.”

With Hug being the wheelchair equivalent of cycling’s superman Chris Froome, he’ll have an equally large bullseye on his back when the wheelers line up in Staten Island an hour before the elite women. They’ll finish before the women reach halfway, and if you like the intrigue and excitement of some of the Tour de France sprint finishes, this one should be a spicy appetizer to the elite runners’ races that follow.

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Published on November 06, 2016 06:06

November 5, 2016

Behind the Scenes of the the NYC Marathon Timing Operations

At left, New York City Marathon timing and scoring staff work on Saturday in the operations center, located more than half a mile from the physical finish line. At right, a computer monitor shows readouts from some of the 54 timing points on the marathon course. Photos: Jim Gerweck

Most runners, and even some highly placed race officials, think timing and scoring a running event, even one as big as the TCS New York City Marathon, entails little more than pushing a button or two and waiting for the results to print out or be posted online. Tom Kelley, who’s in charge of that function for the marathon and the dozens of other New York Road Runners races during the year, knows there’s just a bit more to it than that.

While the advent of transponder timing (colloquially known as “chip” timing) has made the process less hands-on, labor-intensive, the technology that enabled that has kept evolving at an almost exponential rate. Coupled with the growing fields of the marathon (some 50,000 runners will cover the five-borough course on Sunday) and the ever-increasing expectations of those following their family members and friends at home, it has made the task as involved as one of the old space shuttle launches.

Consider this: Kelley’s army of timers (including many from 15 outside timing companies as well as NYRR staff) will record runners passing over the start and finish lines, as well as every mile and 5K split en route, plus the halfway point. In addition, they’ll be tracked when they board buses or ferries early in the morning on their way to the start in Staten Island and when they enter the Athletes Village there, as well as when they exit Central Park after collecting their finishers medal and drop bags.

“It’s all a way of keeping track of how many people are in what stage of the race,” Kelley said from the timing and scoring control center, located in the NYRR headquarters more than half a mile from the finish line at Tavern on the Green. In total, there are 54 timing points, and almost all of them have two tag readers, or controllers.

These machines, about the size of a small microwave, all have to be synchronized, distributed along the course, then connected wirelessly to the scoring servers, which themselves have redundant backups, then fed into NYRR’s proprietary scoring software and posted online (fortunately, the days of printed results are long gone from races like New York, which would require two reams of paper for just a single set.)

In the early days of transponder timing, just the start and finish reads were recorded, but just like everything else in life, more data is always demanded. That’s become especially so with the advent of apps that allow tracking of runners: in order to make the progress reports as close to real-time as possible, lots of closely spaced data points are necessary.

The first attempts in this endeavor were hampered when the cellular networks became overwhelmed by all the people on the course following runners on their phones.

“Fortunately the wireless companies have really beefed up their networks and increased their capacity over that past few years,” Kelley said. “They’re less likely to be surprised by the demand on race day now.”

Still, the race for more data shows no signs of slowing down. This year, a dozen runners including some elites, some wheelchair racers as well as mid-packers, will be wearing a device that monitors biometric markers such as heart and breathing rate, body temperature and stride cadence and feeds that information back to the broadcast center.

How long will it be before all 50,000 runners in the marathon will be outfitted with similar devices? Given the progress in technology, sooner than you think. Tom Kelley and his team will be ready.

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Published on November 05, 2016 23:16

Photos: Runners Rock Savannah

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Savannah Marathon & 1/2 Marathon took place on Saturday morning with picture perfect fall running conditions. Participants experienced a revamped route featuring Savannah’s charming town squares, historic buildings and canopies of Spanish moss covered trees. In true Rock ‘n’ Roll fashion, live bands, enthusiastic cheerleaders and spectators will line the race route, concluding with a celebratory finish line festival where Old Crowe Medicine Show headlined the Toyota Rock ‘n’ Roll Concert Series at Forsyth Park. (Photo Credit: Sanford Meyers)

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