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How can the Edinburgh Marathon be the fastest?
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Looking at the Run Britain SSS scores for the Edinburgh Marathon over the last three years, I see a 1.4, a 1.5 and even a 2.0. This weight of evidence, doubtless based on very large numbers, surely suggests Edinburgh is slower than the likes of Abingdon and VLM?
I'm running Edinburgh at the end of this month - and I am hoping for a pb. If someone could reassure me that these SSS scores are highly misleading, I would certainly appreciate it..... but I would also be very surprised !!!!
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The claim is made both on the Edinburgh marathon homepage and on the Wikipedia page for the Edinburgh marathon. Hence it's evidently being used as a marketing message to reel in the punters.
Good point. Last year there were only 15 sub 2:40s in a field of 8,600.
Maybe that has some effect on SSS scores.... although I have noticed that races without too much strength at the front can have suspiciously low SSS scores. For example, the Southampton half last sunday was pretty weak at the front and despite being a tough/hilly course it received an SSS of 0.8.
However I'm not sure if SSS is related to runner quality at all.
Flat course, less turns and fewer people which means very little weaving in and out of the crowds. It's not London, so I doubt if many runners start walking within the first few miles, jog two or three abreast or spend time making phone calls and texting.
I believe Berlin is said to be the fastest course.
Did it in 2014, the 1st 10k is fairly downhill with the final 20miles fairly flat with small slopes long straight roads and lots of areas without support. Weather can be an issue too! Thankfully last year the rain stopped and the sun came out 10 mins before the start wasn't too hot either. But so many parts of the course are open if you get wind on the coast you could add minutes on your time. Personally would recommend it as a faster course than most and you dont have the crowding you have with London.
http://www.runbritain.com/blogs/runbritain-rankings-frequently-asked-questions
How is the SSS worked out?
The SSS is a difficulty score based on how easy or difficult it was to run a quick time in a given race. The harder it was to run a quick time, the higher the SSS score. The way it is worked out is by looking at people's times in a particular race and comparing it against their previous performances. As a very simplified example, if 100 people run in race A one weekend, and the same 100 run in race B over the same distance the next weekend, if, on average, the field is 60 seconds slower in race B than race A, there was clearly some factor (be it weather conditions, accuracy of course measurement, type of terrain, competitiveness of the field, how hilly the course was etc) which caused times to be slower. Therefore the SSS for race B will be higher than the SSS for race A.
Sometimes the system doesn’t have enough data to run the calculations properly – for example if there were only a small number taking part and only a few of them have profiles so we have limited access to previous performance data. In this situation the system gives a notional value of 1.0.
In that example, I'd say the factor was that all 100 of them raced the weekend before and are tired.
It's been a few years since I've ran it but as i recall. I personally felt that while the course is potentially fast, and i did do a significant pb. I felt i could do better on others, the course suited a small number of the field. The sub 3: 15-30 group as their wasn't enough runners faster than that to protect you from the coastal winds and above that the route was a bit crowded. You also as well as the wind have to factor heat into the equation that can be an issue some years.
Not a slow marathon with lots of straight, relatively wide areas for overtaking so potential opportunities for a PB are good and few walkers certainly in first 16 miles. Agree with the comments re it's more for marketing to draw runners to the race - prefer Dublin any day.
As above, it looks more like marketing. Their organisational skills have also come under criticism in the last few years as well as their refusal to publicise full results.
Judging by the weather forecasts for tomorrow.... I think we're going to find out that wind is the big difficulty on this course. Temperature will be pretty much ideal, humidity and pressure not so good.... rain, even worse (adds some weight and takes more energy to run in it)... but wind... downright awful with 45 mph gusts predicted.
You could argue otherwise and say that the wind effects will cancel out. We're looking at a strong wind coming from the south west. Given that we have a tail wind for twice as long as we have a headwind, and that you get half the energy return from a tailwind as gets taken from you by a headwind, you could say that the two cancel out.
However - I'm not buying that. For me the main consideration is that it's a bad idea to fight a strong headwind because the faster you go, the more the wind saps your energy. I think a good race strategy for sunday would be to run fast heading east with the tailwind, then try to sustain a much slower speed heading back west. That should lead to an even effort distribution over the course.
Any thoughts on that?
Great point earlier about faster runners paying the highest price in windy conditions as they have fewer people to draft with. Definitely a good idea to try to share the draft with others during the race.
There could be something in that, Alasdair. I don't have much experience with trying to split my strategy like that, but maybe stealing a handful of seconds per mile could be beneficial up to the turn...I'm just not sure I'd trust myself to back down on the return to Musselburgh and can see the wheels coming off!
I'd much rather the predictions are wrong and we get a nice, calm day on Sunday, but I'm setting myself for the worst.
Good luck, and try and enjoy it!
A really enjoyable race and I would highly recommend it.... but not as a target spring marathon and without high hopes for a pb. There was just no fighting these headwinds.
Today is the Tuesday afternoon after the race. It's interesting to see the provisional results on the Run Britain website. Club details and pb/sb information has been released for 21 runners out of the fastest 100. The interesting thing is that from the 21 runners there are 9 pbs highlighted. This produces a 'provisional' sss of 1.4 for these runners.
Why so many pbs in the provisional results? Probably just random chance but it is eyebrow-raising !
"There was just no fighting these headwinds."
I guess this is the key thing for Edinburgh, even with the downhill profile.
Maybe one year if you got lucky & the wind kept down you'd have a good chance, but then, being on the coast it must be pretty rare - I ran London 10 mins faster this year than Edinburgh last!
This course was voted the fastest marathon in the UK by Runners World in 2008
Re it claiming to be the UK' s fastest marathon, this is all the website states. Its not a claim that apears to be made with any real persuasion.
The Edinburgh marathon also claims to take place in Edinburgh, so they're not averse to "stretching the truth"