TCS World 10k Bengaluru, was back after a gap of 3 years, on May 15th, 2022.It was a memorable day, and part of the race was run in the rain. Despite the weather, we saw records being made and it was raining personal bests.
Irene Cheptai the elite in the women category recorded 30:35 and broke the course record of 2018 set by late Agnes Tirop. For the men’s Kipkorir Kimeli, fourth in the Olympic Games 5000m last summer broke the course record by 6 seconds from the previous mark set by his Kenyan compatriot Geoffrey Kamworor in 2014 to finish 27:38.
As with our tradition at GeeksOnFeet, we have crunched the timing data of all the Open 10K finishers. Here are some of the insights, that we thought are interesting for everyone.
Finishers’ Trends:
We sliced and diced the data of finishers by different filters, and also compared the data with previous years.
- 8215 runners finished this year, ~35% less than in 2019 with a 36% and 34% reduction in women’s and men’s respectively. The year 2019 had the highest number of finishers with more than 10,000 finishing the Open 10K. We guess it would take a bit more time for running events to go back to their full glory.
Finishers trend over years
- Despite the decline in numbers, good to see the men-to-women finisher ratio remained the same at 80:20. This has been the case for the recent 3 editions (2017,2018, 2022). Let us hope that it gets bettered in the next.
Finisher trend by gender
- Age group numbers give insight into how running as a sport is popular among public. The 30-34 age group category is the biggest with 1595 finishers. Out of which, 1279 finishers are men.
- What is interesting though is when it comes to women, Running seems more popular with the 35-39 age group category with 332 finishers.
Finisher trend by age group
Finish Time Trends:
As a timed event, the data throws up interesting insights into how different cohorts perform.
- There is no surprise to see the younger runners are faster. The 15-19 age group category has the fastest average finish time.
- The surprise however is 45-49 age group, which is the second-fastest among men.
- Among the women, the 40-44 age group category is the second-fastest.
Finish Times by age group
- What is the time range within which most runners have finished their race? We have taken 5-minute slices of finish times, and it is between 60-65 minutes where most runners have finished. As expected, there is a long tail of finishes that go beyond two hours. When it comes to amateur running, It is the spirit of finishing that matters, not the time itself.
Finish Times Distribution
How fast is 2022?
Wonder what is the effect of the rain on the finish times? Did it slow down the runners? Rains have definitely cooled down the temperatures, on the other hand, quite a few puddles to tackle on the course.
- For the Open 10K men, we have a new CR this year by Shivam Yadav finishing 31:58, breaking the earlier CR of 32:10 set by Dinesh Kumar in 2019.
- For the Open 10K women, we have the third-fastest time ever by Pramila Yadav at 39:06.
Winning Times
- The other metric that can tell us how fast this race is is the finish times of the Top 1% of the finishers. We have compared the finish times of the past 10 editions, and we have a winner. 2022 is by far the fastest by a margin. Any guesses on what would have helped? Rains, better training awareness, super shoes?
Winning Times
How did runners pace?
10K is an interesting format. It gives, plenty of options to runners on how to pace. Unlike a marathon distance where negative splits are rare, 10K can be very different. So here is what the runners’ splits look like.
- 36% of the runners have finished with negative splits. This is significantly high when compared to marathon distance, where the negative splits are run only by 5-10% of the runners.
- When it comes to age groups, negative splits are run by the 20-24 age category the most. 43% of the finishers in this group have run negative splits.
Negative splits by Age Group
- When we plotted the splits against the finish times, faster runners used the negative split strategy the most. Runners who finished under 45 minutes have predominantly finished with negative splits.
Splits Distribution
Hope you have liked the insights. If you find any additional insights, please do write to us via email or through any of our social media channels.
Prepared by Team GeeksOnFeet for the love of running
