How does pacing differ across recorded gender groups?

Use the smaller category count as a common stratum weight. Thus both matched estimates have the same race and opening-time distribution. Opening time is an observed race performance, not an independent measure of prior fitness. Age, experience and other factors remain uncontrolled.

The export field is sex; labels follow its recorded categories. Other or missing categories remain in the overall pacing analyses but are not included in this two-category comparison.

Use complete, strictly increasing elapsed checkpoints at 3.11, 6.21, 9.32, 12.43, 15.53, 18.64, 21.75, 24.85 and 26.22 mi. Clock strings must parse as H:MM:SS or M:SS. No missing splits are interpolated.

Remove exact duplicate race records, ignoring database IDs, ingestion timestamps and source URLs. Retain finishes from 90 minutes to 12 hours with every section between 3.22 and 32.19 minutes/mi. These quality filters can exclude genuine unusual performances; the analysis describes this eligible cohort, not every entrant.

Each observation is a race finish. The same person can appear in multiple races. No runner identities are linked across races. Public cells require at least 100 observations; matched comparisons additionally require at least 20 per group in each stratum.

Apply the reviewed source-quality edition exclusions for this exact export after the timing checks. Known invalid split grids, incomplete ingestion, unreconciled HOLD editions and a selected top-finisher field do not contribute to the analyses or prior benchmarks. Report source exclusions separately; an already invalid timing row is not counted twice. Missing age or recorded gender alone does not exclude an otherwise eligible finish from the overall cohort. Other sparse editions are not declared incomplete merely from their size.

Marathons, years and recorded data. Chart samples may be smaller than the eligible analysis cohort.