{ "schema_version": 1, "id": "ext_earlier_best_section_gains", "question_id": "r32_where_pbs_are_gained", "title": "Where is a faster recorded best gained?", "status": "ready", "as_of": "2026-09-12T14:13:07Z", "n": 278878, "input_export_id": "private-20260912-0934", "input_as_of": "2026-09-12T13:37:16Z", "live_json_as_of": "2026-09-12T04:11:06Z", "input_asset_sha256": "cb4e0ab7432010de29755ec5d75ca3b370e64e481eda5b20c44b359f39552204", "input_manifest_sha256": "a6f534d40bac291e0a1bc2eeb70633660acd00a710a090320876736de9c30f4d", "analysis_script_sha256": "4a26017aa2c2b2796e8d5f3498ea5e0a2f3c1e691a7332ef20cdbc256d4cdd42", "analysis_version": 2, "engine": "DuckDB 1.4.4", "corpus": { "n_records": 4462379, "n_cities": 34, "n_race_years": 256 }, "cohort": { "deduplicated": 4462379, "complete": 3830211, "increasing": 3604993, "timing_eligible": 3595426, "eligible": 3517336, "source_quality_excluded": 78090, "raw": 4462379, "duplicates_removed": 0, "missing_or_unparsed": 632168, "non_increasing": 225218, "outside_quality_bounds": 9567 }, "methodology_prose": [ "For each eligible linked finish faster than every eligible recorded finish in strictly earlier calendar years, select the fastest earlier-year record as comparator. Break tied best times by earlier year and then stable raw record ID. Both races must have all nine valid checkpoints.", "Subtract current from earlier elapsed time over 0\u201310, 10\u201330 and 30\u201342.195 km. Positive means time gained. Compute means so that the three block means sum exactly to the mean finish improvement; separately divide each block by its own distance to show seconds gained per kilometer. Assert that block gains sum to total gain for every pair and in the published means. Different courses and conditions can contribute to gains.", "For explicitly audited canonical-ID releases, validate unique matching CORE/FULL ID sets and matching recorded edition/name labels, then join by record ID with matching finish and all nine section durations. Legacy exports retain the one-to-one edition, trimmed lowercase name and full-timing join because their IDs are incompatible. Durations are compared to milliseconds. Keep only supplied non-ambiguous runner identities without conflicting recorded gender, inferred birth years spanning more than two years, or duplicate editions. These are candidate cross-race identities, not independently verified people; unlinked runners are absent. The linkage audit records which join was used.", "Use complete, strictly increasing elapsed checkpoints at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 and 42.195 km. 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 2 and 20 minutes per km. These quality filters can exclude genuine unusual performances; the analysis describes this eligible cohort, not every entrant.", "Full source records are available in public GitHub Releases. These chart tables require at least 100 eligible observations per cell for estimate reliability. Counts refer to finishes, linked pairs or event observations as specified in that answer.", "These are observational results. Fitness changes, intentions, training, selection into the dataset and unmeasured conditions can explain differences. Outcome percentiles describe variation among performances, not confidence intervals or advice about the best strategy.", "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." ], "observational": true, "minimum_public_cell": 100, "source_quality": { "version": 1, "release_tag": "private-export-20260912-0934", "reviewed_edition_policy": true, "editions": [ { "city": "Honolulu", "year": 2016, "category": "invalid_split_grid", "reason": "Producer explicitly force-dropped this incomplete 5 km grid.", "raw_records": 20118, "deduplicated_records": 20118, "timing_eligible_excluded": 0 }, { "city": "Rotterdam", "year": 2012, "category": "invalid_split_grid", "reason": "Producer explicitly force-dropped this incomplete 5 km grid.", "raw_records": 7542, "deduplicated_records": 7542, "timing_eligible_excluded": 0 }, { "city": "Eindhoven", "year": 2009, "category": "invalid_split_grid", "reason": "Producer explicitly force-dropped this incomplete 5 km grid.", "raw_records": 1407, "deduplicated_records": 1407, "timing_eligible_excluded": 0 }, { "city": "Eindhoven", "year": 2010, "category": "invalid_split_grid", "reason": "Producer explicitly force-dropped this incomplete 5 km grid.", "raw_records": 1462, "deduplicated_records": 1462, "timing_eligible_excluded": 0 }, { "city": "Frankfurt", "year": 2019, "category": "invalid_split_grid", "reason": "Producer explicitly force-dropped this 5 km grid; numerically plausible rows are not reinstated.", "raw_records": 12513, "deduplicated_records": 12513, "timing_eligible_excluded": 10624 }, { "city": "New York", "year": 2008, "category": "unreconciled_hold", "reason": "Previously partial ingestion has grown to 38,047 records, but source-total reconciliation and explicit completion evidence are absent; keep the prior hold pending review.", "raw_records": 38047, "deduplicated_records": 38047, "timing_eligible_excluded": 37387 }, { "city": "Chicago", "year": 2016, "category": "incomplete_ingestion", "reason": "Producer handoff identifies this 6,512-record edition as incomplete and on HOLD.", "raw_records": 6512, "deduplicated_records": 6512, "timing_eligible_excluded": 6506 }, { "city": "Tokyo", "year": 2026, "category": "selected_field", "reason": "Source notes identify top-500 PDFs, not a representative full marathon field.", "raw_records": 353, "deduplicated_records": 353, "timing_eligible_excluded": 353 }, { "city": "Amsterdam", "year": 2025, "category": "unreconciled_hold", "reason": "Source audit marks HOLD: 23,328 listed versus 23,325 retrieved. This conservative hold does not establish a large bias from the three missing records.", "raw_records": 23325, "deduplicated_records": 23325, "timing_eligible_excluded": 23220 }, { "city": "Valencia", "year": 2017, "category": "incomplete_ingestion", "reason": "Source audit marks HOLD: 3,373 listed detail pages missing; the observed records also lack 20 km.", "raw_records": 12485, "deduplicated_records": 12485, "timing_eligible_excluded": 0 }, { "city": "Valencia", "year": 2018, "category": "incomplete_ingestion", "reason": "Producer handoff retains an incomplete/HOLD status; the edition also lacks the observed 20 km checkpoint.", "raw_records": 19236, "deduplicated_records": 19236, "timing_eligible_excluded": 0 } ], "policy_sha256": "c08e83c993025dc41c0344be7b5442d74b3fb0588c38949481d5bc0a08f45fa0", "script_sha256": "433e8b9566b5afd809f4de1180fab222e63ad40678a33f6c93f08712cf820c77" }, "source_quality_script_sha256": "433e8b9566b5afd809f4de1180fab222e63ad40678a33f6c93f08712cf820c77", "observation_unit": "earlier-best comparisons", "evidence_scope": "partial comparison", "supporting_script_sha256": "7c6959b427fa1b06bb9600bb3377ecb226257d14aa0ec61a71a63f42bc87a3dd", "linkage_audit": { "feature_rows": 4462379, "safe_identity_groups": 2892236, "record_join_method": "canonical_record_id", "canonical_id_contract_verified": true, "candidate_link_rows": 3194070, "natural_key_candidate_rows": 0, "canonical_id_candidate_rows": 3194070, "ambiguous_cross_export_matches": 0, "linked_eligible_finishes": 3194070, "recent_benchmark_finishes": 555437, "consecutive_cross_year_pairs": 583670, "linked_with_supplied_date": 3185321 }, "narrative_script_sha256": "a9c6755fe727caa6c5a3994bd565e615067ec09c9c6f31e4e076622b810b5dcf" }