The Perils of Poor Pacing

There was an interesting article on the Science of Sport site about Kayoko Fukushi's marathon debut in Osaka.

In case anyone wonders why endurance athletes are so caught up on pacing, the video clip of her last 300m of the race should be expanation enough in itself. This is what can happen when you get your pacing wrong.

I assume the woman in the crowd the the camaera keeps cutting to is Fukushi's mother (my Japanese is limitted to mispronouncing my sushi order). I can't imagine having to watch someone I care about be in such terrible condition and be unable to do anything but watch. I got a little teary, although almost all finish line footage gets me choked up.