Marathon Graphing

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Marathon Graphing

Introduction

Here are record-breaking times for the men's marathon from all over the world. We've graphed the times and a line that models the data. You can use the line to see trends in the data.

Men's Times
Year	Athlete	Time
1935	Kitei Son	2h 26m 42s
1947	Yun Bok Suh	2h 25m 49s
1952	Jim Peters	2h 20m 43s
1954	Jim Peters	2h 17m 40s
1963	Buddy Edelen	2h 14m 28s
1969	Derek Clayton	2h 8m 34s
1981	Robert de Castella	2h 8m 18s
1985	Carlos Lopes	2h 7m 12s
1999	Khalid Khannouchi	2h 5m 42s

Use the applet to graph the women's times for the marathon so you can answer the questions below.

Women's Times Year Athlete Time (Approx. Minutes) 1964 Dale Grieg 3h 27m 45s 207 1970 Caroline Walker 3h 2m 53s 182 1971 Adrienne Beames 2h 46m 30s 166 1974 Jackie Hansen 2h 43m 55s 164 1975 Jackie Hansen 2h 38m 19s 158 1977 Christa Vahlensieck 2h 34m 47s 155 1978 Grete Waitz 2h 32m 30s 152 1980 Grete Waitz 2h 25m 42s 145 1983 Joan Benoit 2h 22m 43s 143 1985 Ingrid Kristiansen 2h 21m 6s 141 1998 Tegla Loroupe 2h 20m 47s 140 1999 Tegla Loroupe 2h 20m 43s 140

Click To Show Applet Window

Questions:

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Use the graph you made in the applet to answer the following questions:

1. Based on the graph, what do you think the women's winning time should have been this year at the Sidney 2000 Olympic Games?
   
   
2. Predict when women will run the marathon as fast as men.
   
   
3. What do you think the women's world record marathon time was in 1926? Use this Web link from the Centre for Innovation in Mathematics Teaching (CIMT) to look up times from 1926 to see how well they fit your prediction.
   
   
4. Using lines to model data can be a powerful tool, but we have to be careful to be aware of their limitations. What real-world limitations do you think a line has in modeling the data?