Boston+Marathon

Introduction:
The Boston Marathon has run for over 100 years. Are the athletes of today getting faster? Were the athletes of the past slow? What trends do you see in marathon running?

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You will use The Boston Athletic Association Home Page to gather data about past marathons. Using this data you will investigate the relationships between distance, rate, and time (d=rt).=====

Resources:
You will need Internet clearance to complete this activity. You will need to use d=rt to complete this activity. You will need to use Excel to complete this activity. Sites you will want to access to complete this lesson:
 * The Boston Athletic Association
 * MapQuest

Answer the questions below by gathering data from The Boston Athletic Association. Be sure to use complete sentences and show all work. Evaluation:

 * Questions to be completed in a Word document (type and bold each question, then answer):** You may show math calcuations on a seperate sheet of paper and attach it later.

1. Who won the Boston Marathon in 1999? 2. What was the average mile time for the winner in 1999? 3. At this rate, how long would it take to run from Seattle to Bellingham? You will need to find this distance somewhere. MapQuest is a good utility for finding distances. 4. In paragraph form, discuss how you derived your answer. Be sure to include any math calculations you used. 5. What was the average mile time for the winners of the women's race from 1990 to 1999? 6. What is the median of the average mile times from the winners of the women's race from 1990 to 1999? Show your work to justify your answer. 7. What is the mean of the average mile times from the winners of the women's race from 1990 to 1999? 8. Study the data for the last 100 years of the men's race winners. 9. Make a list of the fastest times by decade: 1900s, 1910s, 1920s,... up to 1990s. Put this list of data in an Excel spreadsheet (two columns, year and time). 10. Make a graph of this data. Use the chart wizard. 11. Speculate (in writing) what trends you see. You should copy and paste your Excel spreadsheet in your Word document. 12. What did you label the x and y axis? 13. Do the data points seem to fit in a straight line or a curve? 14. Are the speeds increasing or decreasing?

Conclusion:
15. What are some factors that have contributed to faster times by modern marathon runners? 16. Describe the relationship between time and speed(rate).

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