Agree with a lot of the points from both CH and HP. Also agree with an earlier comment from CH that pace is to some degree built into the figure we assign-- this is clearly (and consciously) true in the example he uses of something else, the extremely slow pace races, almost all of which are on grass. We cut those races loose, which has the effect of disregarding final time (which is the only way to do Euro figures), and you would be shocked at how well the figure relationships within the race hold up anyway (although it clearly affects the RESULTS of the races, in large part because of ground loss faced by closers in bunched up fields).

But there are countless degrees of pace between the obvious extremely slow paced races and normal or hot paced races, and all of these could affect final time to some degree that falls within what we consider a normal deviation for a race even if we think the track is basically staying the same speed-- so when we change the figure a little to make it fit tight that could as easily be because of pace as wind gusts, evaporation, track maintenance, etc.



TGJB