Evolution of marathon runners

[palrogg]

I'd like to plot the evolution of marathon runners in a specific race called “Course de l'Escalade” in the last three years. Maybe I could try to extend it to 5 or 10 years, but the data isn't easy to handle (missing data for years 2011 and 2012 and changes in the data format over time).

If I can gather enough data, I'd like to see if these marathon runners improve over time, and maybe if some decline after a certain age.

I'd like to see similar graphs about how racers evolve, maybe you know some examples?

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[M0nica]

Maybe you can track the speed of specific runners over time and aggregate data from other sources if the data available specifically for “Course de l'Escalade” is not enough.

It may be interesting also to look at more than 3 years. I do wonder how much time it takes for age to lead to a decline in performance for professional athletes (it may be a matter of a year or 5 years). I would be interested in seeing compared to the average individuals do more athletic individuals have a proportionally lower decline in performance with age?

[sz2472]

First, I am concerned about the age range of the runners. Do you have a specific demographic group in mind? Also, maybe the social/economic status of the runners: like how are people's income affect their running habit? Second, just found this chart that might give you some ideas to enrich your data visualization: https://www.behance.net/gallery/13503061/Marathon-Runners-(A-Data-Visualization)

[palrogg]

Thank you so much for your feedback! @M0nica:

• It's a good idea to aggregate data from other sources. I actually ended up doing it for the “Course de l'Escalade” because my data wasn't accurate for the year 2015...
• Data gathering was much more manual than I thought, but I gave a try both with 2013-2015 and with 2010-2015 (so over 3 and 6 years).
• Crossing this data with the ages will be the next step. I'll have to do it much more manually than I thought, again!
• Compare average individuals / more athletic individuals: good questions, I hope I'll be able to measure this (and maybe if the decline occurs at a different age)...

@sz2472 :

• The age range is determined by the runners who participated many years in a row. I didn't joined the dataset containing the ages yet (I already had to join 6 datasets!) but it'll be the next step.
• Social/economic status: I don't have any information about this, but I plan to do something about the neighborhood of the runners...
• Thank you for this interesting link!

Results:

[palrogg]

The data (10 csv files): https://github.com/palrogg/playfair-projects/tree/master/projects/paul-ronga

Possible headlines:

• How long-distance runners evolve over time
• The raise and decline of long-distance runners

[jsoma]

Moved to the right issue

[playfairbot]

Closing pitch since story has been opened at #91