Pacing isn’t is as simple as it seems. Sure, “maintain a steady pace” seems like good advice. But in practice, as researchers like Ross Tucker and Tim Noakes have shown, world records in track races between 1500 and 10,000 meters tend to be set with a fast start, a steady middle, and a fast finish.

It’s not clear how much of this model is specific to running, and how much is a universal feature of endurance events, so it’s interesting to look at data from other sports. A recent study in the journal Sports Medicine, from researchers at the University of St. Mark and St. John, James Cook University, and the University of Essex, digs into the history of the Oxford and Cambridge Boat Race, which was first held in 1829 and has detailed records going back at least to 1890.

For the period between 1890 and 2014, the average time to complete the four-plus-mile race was just under 20 minutes: 1,170 seconds (19:30) for Oxford, and 1,168 (19:28) for Cambridge. Not surprisingly, times have been getting faster over the years. Here are the decade averages:

Sports Medicine

One thing that jumps out is how fast the times were in the 1990s. I didn’t see any discussion of this in the paper; perhaps it’s just a fluke or a consequence of some other external factor, but it’s not clear why times would have gotten slower in the 2000s. If this were a graph of professional running or cycling times, it would be hard not to point out that the 1990s were when EPO became available, and the 2000s were when testing for EPO became widespread.

As for the overall trends, technology plays a bit of a role, thanks to the progressive development of boat and oar technology. Training duration and intensity are also likely much higher these days.

Another simple factor that’s clearly shown in the records is that rowers have been getting steadily bigger. Here’s that data:

Sports Medicine

In 1890, the average weight of the crews was 77.2 kilograms (170 pounds), which was comparable to the general population at the time. In 2014, the Oxford crew averaged 87.8 kilograms (193 pounds) and the Cambridge crew averaged a lumbering 91.9 kilograms (203 pounds).

It’s interesting to note that the fast times in the 1990s are not explained by bigger crews. In fact, the 1990s crews were, if anything, a bit lighter than the 1980s crews.

Where things get really interesting is the pacing. This is a head-to-head race, so each boat’s strategy is heavily dependent on what the other boat does (or what it thinks the other boat will do). The result is a very distinctive pattern. Here are the decade-by-decade average splits at various key points along the Thames:

Sports Medicine

Every single boat in the analysis started the first segment of the race faster than it could sustain for the rest of the race, despite have to start from a standstill. There’s not much evidence of a finishing “kick,” though a sub-analysis of races that were close at the final checkpoint shows that, in that situation, about half of the boats were able to accelerate a bit in the final segment.

The fast start is a common feature in rowing races, because it allows the rowers (who are facing backward) to see their competitors, and it also gives you smooth water while forcing your competitors to row through the choppy water you leave in your wake.

In this particular race, the early lead is even more important, because the river twists around two S-bends, so getting to the inside line is another advantage of taking an early lead.

As a result, getting the early lead really does seem to pay off. The boat that was leading at the first checkpoint, a mile into the race, went on to win a startling 80.6 percent of the time. (In contrast, it’s downright rare for the leader one kilometer into a 5,000- or 10,000-meter championship running race to end up winning.)

By the time the boats reach the final checkpoint, about three-quarters of a mile from the finish, it’s all but over. The leader at that point wins 93.6 percent of the time.

What’s tricky here is to determine whether the strategies shown here are, in fact, the optimal strategies. As I mentioned above, both boats in every single race started at an unsustainably fast pace, with the most common pattern being a first segment 10 to 15 percent faster than the overall average. This was true for both winners and losers—so it’s hard to say whether the crews have settled on the most effective strategy, or whether they’re both simply locked into a pattern that neither wants to risk varying from.

Ultimately, it appears that the nature of rowing (seat position, water resistance) and the specific tactical constraints of the race (the course, the closely-matched head-to-head format) dictate a seemingly suicidal fast start rather than a more conventional even-paced race.

As it happens, that's very similar to what happens at cross-country races—even the world championships, as a study a few years ago found—where virtually all the runners, including the winners, set off at a breakneck unsustainable pace in order to establish position.

It’s interesting to contrast this to championship long-distance track races, which—to the consternation and bewilderment of many fans—overwhelmingly tend to start out slow and then accelerate at some point later in the race. Every time this happens, there’s a chorus of disgruntled fans complaining about the “stupid” runners who should have started fasted.

My question is: Are rowers braver than runners? Or are they dumber? Or are both sets of athletes simply responding to the specific demands of their sport and competitive situation to try to maximize their finishing position?

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