Análise das estratégias de pacing utilizadas na Maratona de Berlim de 2004 a 2019

Abstract

Several factors contribute to the performance of road running athletes, however, the pacing strategies used in competitions have been shown to be an important factor for the athlete's final result. This study investigated which pacing strategies were used by men and women in various editions of the Berlin Marathon between 2004 and 2019, proof in which most world records are surpassed. Furthermore, we analyzed whether the editions in which the records happened, the pacing strategy adopted was different from the editions without breaking records. The first 20 male and female athletes of the studied editions participated in this study, and these participants will be divided into 4 groups: world record, champions group, 2 nd to 5 th place group and 6th to 20 th place group. The time taken in the eight partials of 5 km and one of 2,195 km were converted into seconds to calculate the speed in meters per second. The speed of each athlete in each partial was normalized by the average speed of each athlete in the test. We used ANOVA for repeated measures of two factors (time and group) with Bonferroni post-hoc to identify the pacing strategy. World record men used a constant pacing strategy (p=0.98). Men and women regardless of world record winners also used a constant pacing strategy (p= 1 and p= 0.108 - 1 respectively) and (p= 1). The 2nd to 5th placed group of both genders presented a positive pacing strategy (p= 0.000 - 0.007) and (p = 0.00 - 0.04). No differences were found in the pacing strategy of winning men and women (a), being used by both the constant pacing strategy. The 6th to 20th male and female group also presented a positive pacing strategy (Men p=0.000) and (Women p<0.001). We conclude that the world record holders used a constant pacing strategy, the winning athletes used a constant pacing strategy and the 2 nd to 5 th place and 6 th to 20 th place groups of both sexes used positive pacing strategy.