The SlowPhysics WebPage Things should be made as simple as possible but no simpler - Albert Einstein

Click for Maynooth 2000 Results.
Maynooth - Why?
Because it's there. Every year the Varsity season kicks off with a run around the charming campus in Maynooth College. Actually a very decent tree lined 1-mile loop (click here for the course map) with a nice technical section around one side of the Quad. Small hill at the end to suit all you fast finishers. The Men's Race involves teams of 5 running 1mile-2mile-3mile-2mile-1mile legs. The Women's Race has teams of 4 running 1mile-2mile-2mile-1mile legs. DUHAC normally enter several teams. The baton changeovers happen at the zone marked with a tick at 'Start' on the map image).

Who is eligible?
Are you taking a Physics degree/postgrad?
Yes? You're elected. Start training immediately.
No? Oops. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Go to Senior Tutor's Office and ask to restart your studies with a Degree that kicks off by measuring gravity to 5 decimal places with a pendulum and an eggtimer.

Why Physicists? Because we want to, because we want to,......     De Fiziks Dept has the most members in DUHAC and like all large Families we look after our own. In this case we created a prize for our members with special needs. Very special in some cases.
For the New Millenium (which actually begins on the 1st of January, 2001) this year's non-qualifying entrants (SlowLawyers, SlowBESS, SlowICT, VerySlowEngineers, SlowBios, SlowRAMPs, SlowPsychos (Guess who:), etc) will have their times included in the overall results but will be inelligible for the The SlowPhysics Award Trophy (further details next week.)

The Rules
Glad you asked. Maynooth has 3 distances 1 mile, 2 mile and 3 mile.
As you all know 1mile = 1609.344m. So assuming that Maynooth have measured their course accurately the 3 legs are:
1609.344m, 3218.688m, and 4828.032m respectively. We will assume an error of 0.001m (or 0.0254 thousanths of an inch for you engineers.)

Outside of quite a few countries the mile, 2 mile and 3 mile distances are not run very much so the World Bests for those distances are not very representative. Instead we will normalise(see note) the track world records for 1500m, 3000m and 5000m to the 1mile, 2mile and 3mile distances.

This gives (please give a full proof in your write-up, SHOW WHERE YOU HAVE USED A CALCULATOR OR WHERE YOU JUST GUESSED) the following:

Men

Distance	WR(as of 1/10/2000)	Maynooth Equivalent
1500m	3:26.00	3:41.02 (1mile)
3000m	7:20.67	7:52.79 (2mile)
5000m	12:39.36	12:13.24 (3mile)

Women

Distance	WR(as of 1/10/2000)	Maynooth Equivalent
1500m	3:50.46	4:07.26 (1mile)
3000m	8:06.11	8:41.55 (2mile)

Table 1: The dodgy but surprisingly accurate maths.

Then you just calculate your percentage of World Record pace for your distance and whoever has the biggest percentage (i.e. is slowest) wins the SlowPhysics Award for that year. So simple even a BESS student can learn it off by heart without knowing what it means and still get it wrong in the exam.

Worked example (so that the Lab Demonstrator has something solid to bullshit about)

The 1999 Results

Leg	Name	Raw Time	%of WR Split	SlowPhysics Rank
1 mile	Rob Lillis	5'13"	141.61616	5.
1 mile	Cian D. Lung	5'19"	144.33083	2.
2 mile	S. Lipson	11'12"	142.21350	4.
2 mile	Kingsley Topping	11'34"	146.78821	1. Winner.
3 mile	Axel B. Foley	17'34"	143.74556	3.

Table 2. The 1999 Results

As you can see last year's results were very close. Note 1% represent 2.21sec of 1mile WR split, 4.73sec of 2mile WR split, and 7.33sec at 3mile WR split. So Kinglsey was declared the outright winner (Cian would have had to run 5.43081sec slower over 1 mile or Kingsley 11.62341sec faster over 2 mile for Cian to have edged the win.)

*Normalise:Don't worry. It involves fractions and other difficult maths like multiplication but it all works out in the end.


The Results


Like most experiments you will be familiar with the final results will bear little resemblance to the data taken on the day. Instead the winner will most likely win due to calculator error arising from a dropped factor of 4pi². A dead heat will be called where the corrected hand timed scores for both competitors are the same to within 1us.

Getting to the line in racing trim.

The key to success is of course the taper. Tapering involves careful attention to diet, sleep and stress loads in the run up to a race. Examination of successful strategies of previous winners bears this out.

Normally 10-12 days before the race elites SlowPhysicists will head to the Pavillion at 5pm each day for a relaxing smoke and some pints before heading out for a serious bender.

Sleep should be kept to a minimum during this period but Nighttime TV looks so much more interesting with a blood:alcohol ratio of 1:1.

The other critical ingredient is of course diet. Suitable meals would include almost any pork product (elites should fry these in lard and use fried bread to ensure they soak up any globs that dripped off.) Pasta in any form should be avoided and vegetables are out all together.

Proper liquid intake is also vital. Diuretics are the way to go here. Tea/coffee/alcohol/Red Bull/all-of-the-above will help to flush H₂0 out of the system and reduce weight. As any self respecting physicist knows, F=ma so the lower the mass the bigger the acceleration. Obviously this means that it's important to get rid of all that excess water which is much too heavy. Don't worry if your brain shrinks to the size of a raisin; running doesn't require any thought.

Any training done during this period should be sufficiently inappropriate so as to cause injury (e.g. 12x400m repeats on concrete in Doc Martins is an old favorite.) Other inappropriate forms of training included running marathons.

The Hall of Shame.

These are the people who have excelled in their field and set the standard for you to follow.

	1996 Winner Geoff 'KGB-TLC' Bradley Time: 13m15s (2miles) Geoff, a former DUHAC treasurer, and all round GSU hack has built a solid reputation on the back of one race he did in Colours 1996. His athletics career since has been plagued by work, beer, Catriona D. Pharmacist, beer, the GSU, beer and a few injuries (e.g. his spectacular fall in Front Sqr during Chariots '97). His key to success on the day was going on the beer the night before and getting two hours sleep before the race. True class.
	1997 Winner Paul "UCDAC" Curtayne Time: 13m36s(Rec) (2miles) The Record Holder who started that day saying 'No one can run slower than Geoff' and came in 21seconds outside the '96 winner's time. The photo on the left shows a perplexed Paul shrugging at his post race press conference under questions from journalists. The relieved race winner (left) explains how smoking Marlboro's helped him to just overtake Paul on that last corner. By any standard 13m36s for 2miles is quality and we don't expect it to be challenged for some time.
	1998 Winner Stephen Lipson Time: 12m19s (2miles) A very poor year for physicists and a fairly brisk winning time. Stephen (left) had run 10m33s for this event before but through a unique training programme involving injuries that continue to baffle physios, and a diet heavily sponsored by Cadbury's he found a winning formula. Hopes very much not to be a contender this year. That is JC (right), another candidate for care in the community who hopes to run slowly this year.
	1999 Winner Michael (Kingsley) Carr Time: 11m34s (2miles) The One, The Only, The Undisputed King of the Kidney Punch: Kingsley Topping. Seen here (left) receiving the overall trophy for the British & Irish Boxing Intervarsities. Earlier in the year he won his Irish Univ. Light Heavyweight title in a new record time by stopping his opponent with 16 punches in 15seconds. But that record pales into insignificance compared to the titanic struggle between himself and Cian Cullinan in Maynooth 1999. Cian had run a decent mile time on Leg 1 and thought he had done enough but Kingsley refused to allow lack of training to interfere and ran slower on the 2 mile leg. Cian, fumbling with a calculator realised that things were slipping away from him, went and ran the closing 1 mile leg in a slower time. This would have won Cian the Award but Cyril stepped in and disqualified his second run. So near and yet so far.