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Sunday, November 07, 2010

2010 ING New York City Marathon - Live Coverage

Live updates as we follow the race

It has been a slow month on the site since Chicago, but the 2010 NYC marathon is starting momentarily.  As usual we will follow the race with some live blogging, and publish our post-race analysis.

Conditions at the start are very cool---about 4 C with around 10 km/h of wind, so probably a bit too cool for optimal running.  However it is sunny and will warm up, so it will be a great day for a run nevertheless.

This year the race is using "wave" starts to alleviate the start and finishing traffic.  The pro women are set to go off a 0910 Eastern Time, with them 30 min later at 0940.

We have been using the marathon site's athlete tracker, which has become a standard feature on most of the big city race sites.  The funny thing about the NYC one, however, is that it let's you track only five athletes at a time, whereas Chicago I could enter as many as I wanted.

Both races are progressing, but the NYC website's athlete tracker seems to be having problems, and I a not able to track the splits.

Women's race

5 km  18:40
10 km  36:01
15 km  53:54
20 km  1:11:53
21.1 km  1:15:48
25 km  1:29:55
30 km  1:47:13
35 km  2:04:39
40 km (25 mi)  2:27:07
42.2 km  2:28:20 (Flanagan 2nd at 2:28:40)

And the women are now off!  On paper several women should be in contention, while several more are debuting today:  Ana Dulce Felix (POR), Shalane Flanagan (USA), Mary Keitany (KEN), and Werknesh Kidane (ETH).

The women have now gone thru 5 km in 18:40.  That is a rather pedestrian 2:37 marathon pace, so expect that to change in time.

10 km has been covered in the women's race, and the pace has not changed much.  The split was 36:01, which is a bit faster for that 5 km interval compared to the first.  They are now on 2:32 marathon pace.

Men's race

Scheduled to start at 0940


5 km  16:26
10 km  32:00
15 km  46:52
20 km  1:02:07
21.1 km  1:05:19
25 km  1:17:33
30 km  1:31:38
35 km  1:46:32 (Kwambai is gapped)
40 km (25 mi)  2:07:12 (Mutai in 2nd at 2:08:02
42.2 km  2:08:14 (Mutai 2nd in 2:09:18)

The men have now completed two miles, with an opening mile split of 5:55---which mind you, is mostly uphill as they cross the bridge.

There is an early move, Abderrahime Bouramdane from Morocco, and the fifth place finisher last year, has put in an early surge and is out in front.  Seems suicidal, and so far it is unclear what his aim is----to actually drop anyone, just to test the pack?

The men's pack is around 16 strong, and went thru the first 5 km in about 16:26.  That pack includes all the "contenders" in the some hangers on, because that pace will only mean a 2:18 finish.  Now it is evident why Bouramdane took the flyer earlier!

At this point both races are going to explode, because both men and women are well below the "typical" NYC winning time.  If it stays this slow well into the race, it will be more exciting as more runners are potentially in the mix when the attacks start.

The men are 16+ miles 1:23 into the race now, and very strung out---so moves are being made.

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