The Demo Site

(November 9) I love it when people take their expertise and apply it in unlikely ways – especially when they apply to running. Paul Kedrosky is a trader who writes a blog called "Infectious Greed". He recently analyzed the volatility between the Boston and New York Marathons.

I will try not to butcher this in attempting to explain what Kedrosky is getting at: Volatility refers to the standard deviation between results – basically how far off the average result can you expect a future result to be. In terms of marathons – you would expect the volatility to keep trending down. As runners become faster they will typically drive the winning times down. Eventually the times will plateau and you’ll see most winning marathon times in the same general neighborhood.

With low volatility, you won’t see wild swings in winning marathon times. Its more likely you will see most men’s winners of the NYC Marathon finish closer to 2:09 four years in a row than see four years of 2:09, 2:20, 2:10, 2:17.

He’s created two graphs showing the differences in the two marathons and is looking for suggestions to explain the variance. The top contenders:

1. April weather in Boston is more unpredictable than November in NY.
2. Boston is run going toward the ocean, so the wind is more of a factor
3. The heat of 2007 led to a higher finishing time, creating an anomaly and skewing the results

You can head over to the site to check out the graphs add your thoughts:

http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/2009/11/why_is_the_bost.html