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Going Further with Cases: Using Case-Based Reasoning to Recommend Pacing Strategies for Ultra-Marathon Runners

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Case-Based Reasoning Research and Development (ICCBR 2019)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 11680))

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Abstract

We build on recent work on the application of case-based reasoning to help marathon runners to plan and pace their races. We apply related ideas to the domain of ultra running (typically >100 km routes across mountainous or desert terrain). This new domain introduces its own distinct challenges: distance and terrain make for a more physically demanding and less predictable event; weather can play a very significant role in how competitors perform; and, unlike road marathons, race routes and distances vary from year to year, making it more difficult to compare race records. We evaluate case-based methods for pace prediction and pacing recommendation for runners in the Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc (UTMB), one of the world’s toughest ultra-marathons.

Supported by Science Foundation Ireland through the Insight Centre for Data Analytics under grant number SFI/12/RC/2289.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Tour du Mont Blanc is one of the most popular long-distance walks in Europe. It circles the Mont Blanc massif and is normally walked in a counter-clockwise direction in 11 days; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tour_du_Mont_Blanc.

  2. 2.

    Note we do not use the fastest finish-time because race length tends to vary from year to year depending on conditions and stages and hence mean race pace serves as a more realistic measure performance.

  3. 3.

    https://www.wser.org.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Insight Centre for Data Analytics, School of Computer Science, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Cathal McConnell & Barry Smyth

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  1. Cathal McConnell
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  2. Barry Smyth
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Correspondence to Barry Smyth .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Kerstin Bach

  2. Ohio University, Athens, OH, USA

    Cindy Marling

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McConnell, C., Smyth, B. (2019). Going Further with Cases: Using Case-Based Reasoning to Recommend Pacing Strategies for Ultra-Marathon Runners. In: Bach, K., Marling, C. (eds) Case-Based Reasoning Research and Development. ICCBR 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 11680. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29249-2_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29249-2_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-29248-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-29249-2

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